


I'm Your Sugar-Pink

by RadiatorfromSpace



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Accidental (Nonconsensual) Voyeurism, Accidental Sugar Daddy!Thor, Age Difference, Anal, Anal Plug, Bad Man & Stepfather!Thor, Come-Stuffing, Cum-Stuffing, Daddy Kink, Dark Thor, Dark!Thor which characterization reveals to be Complicated Mostly-Dark!Thor, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Essentially Thor is 75 Percent Cacao, Fingerfucking, Fingering, Human AU, Humor, M/M, Masturbation, Meta-Teasing, Mutual Masturbation, Nonlinear Plotline (Two Plotlines in Different Time Periods), Oral, Possessive Behavior, Power Dynamic Reversal, Pseudo-Incest, Public Masturbation, Public Sex, Ragdolling, Relationship Development, Rimming, Sexual Frustration, Size Difference, Stop laughing, Teasing, The cum-stuffing is the climax of the final chapter, Twisty Shit & Teenage!Loki, Underage - Freeform, Unhealthy Relationships, Unsuccessful Grooming, Virginity Loss Kink, butt plug, handjobs, predatory behavior, size difference kink, trust building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 10:54:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7312147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadiatorfromSpace/pseuds/RadiatorfromSpace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years ago, Thor was a Bad Man hunting the hottest little peach he'd ever seen.</p><p>Two years later, Thor is a Bad Man trying to keep him.</p><p>  <b>Read the tags.</b><br/><b>[NOW COMPLETE]</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No dick for me, thank you!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sexualthorientation (sexyscholar)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sexyscholar/gifts).



> 1) This fic is **N** ot **S** hy about Thor being a **B** ad **M** an. He is not likable in the uncomplicated way you may like ice cream.  
> 2) Their ages are whatever seems to make sense to you.  
> 3) Geography note for **non-U.S. readers** : The state of Nebraska is a _long-ass way away_ from New York City. The fic is set in a wealthy suburb of New York City (Scarsdale, mostly).
> 
> and 4) All past/memory scenes occur in chronological order from earliest to most recent, unless stated otherwise (which happens twice--you'll be fine). THE PRESENT DAY PLOT LINE OCCURS OVER THE COURSE OF ONE WEEKEND PRESENT DAY! The memories span a few months.
> 
> Thank you to [Umakoo](http://pohjanneito.tumblr.com/) for beta-reading!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The setup, in both senses.

“The Future of the Health-Tech Industry and Your Phone,” _read the headline of the New York Times:_ “Sync Your Devices—Sync Them to You.”

_Then Thor Odinson, who was precisely the sort of person who did not grasp irony, was prompted by some deeply entrenched internal clock to remove his phone from his pocket and turn on the home screen, with distinct interest._

_He began a series of deliberate, if seemingly unfinished, actions: he scrolled through the pages, fiddled with a few apps, checked if the GPS and message notifications were doing their fucking jobs, and tested whether or not an assortment of the setting toggles were responsive. Then, concluding that his phone was, in fact, still working, he slipped it back into his pocket and returned to his newspaper._

_It was a temperate day in early April, and Thor sat at one of the frosted-top tables in the country club's “casual canteen”. It overlooked the tennis courts and the ground-level pool. Thankfully, the canteen was deserted by the friendly, social faces of the “people” he'd spent the past three weeks making determined inroads; it was a chore for a man whose typical body language reflected his resounding internal feeling of “No” to personal social interaction, except towards those who could provide something he wanted, and comedians._

_Particularly since Thor was long in the habit of categorizing members of his species into three groups: irrelevant objects, semi-sentient potentially relevant objects, and, rarely, Real People—also defined by Thor as those who could pose a serious threat or benefit to him and were aware of that fact. But they had to know how to wield their assets, or else they fell back into the second group, members of which Thor did Not enjoy (for any redeemable reason)._

_He was a businessman, his money coming to him through his lush salary, annual bonuses, and many profitable investments of his own over the years, and, except for his long hair which he vainly refused to cut, he usually fit right in with many of the other men who could truly afford their memberships at these clubs. His innate tendency toward aggressiveness and bold action had been lovingly nurtured during his time in the work culture of the business world. An economics reporter for the New York Times once asked an aged colleague of his, who was noted for wearing glasses with lenses as thick as coke bottles, if he'd ever seen Thor's sympathetic side. The colleague answered drily: “That one time I took off my glasses.”_

_Thor was a bully. But he had made his professional and sordid achievements in life because he was capable of behaving (generally, and with limitations) in a manner that seemed respectful and caring (enough) to the people he needed or wanted, despite the fact that he rarely truly experienced those two sentiments._

_But he was also a very handsome, wealthy, and well-dressed bully with his shoes of Spanish leather, his crisp white shorts, leather belt, pale blue polo, the second of his two Rolex watches, and the aviator sunglasses resting upon his head. (He secretly hated the polo and only wore his hair tucked away in a neat bun like this because he knew how the members of these establishments were.) The careful balance of not-trying-too-hard clothes sprinkled with new designer items meant the members' soft, moneyed trust was swiftly bestowed upon him._

_Plus, he was single. And he was a catch._

_His move to Rye Brook two months prior had been very abrupt, a detail which he mentioned to No One, at which time he had immediately become “Mr. Borson” to Everyone except his closest staff, and began extending his feelers once more. He expected to start receiving private social invitations from multiple families in the next couple of weeks, and he was hungry. He'd yet to see a specimen which sparked strong interest in him, but he was always hungry._

_“Mister? Have you seen a pair of silver cuff-links around here?”_

_Thor glanced over the top of his newspaper, then, realizing the speaker was shorter than that, he folded the top half down._

_Then he saw him._

_Then he folded his newspaper up, and dropped it onto the table._

_“Who are you calling 'Mister'? I'm not that old!” he said in a warm voice with an even warmer smile. “I normally skin people alive for not calling me Mr. Borson, but you” – and this was where he began making unwavering eye-contact— “I'll let you call me Thor.”_

_He giggled prettily there on the floor, with his sweet chin tilted at a precise and Precious angle. “Way to make your own name sound like a privilege...Mister.” His cheeks pinked adorably._

_Fuck he was Cute. And already a flirt—Thor could tell, but he tended to bring that out in others._

_The 'boy' was not a kid, except in comparison to himself, but—Boy's pretty eyes widened under the direct beam of Thor's intense gaze; the receiver could never help but feel it was intimate, like he was sliding his fingers along the groove of Boy's creamy inner thigh, but without any of the consequences._

_“What's your name, kiddo?”_

_The black brows furrowed adorably._

_“I'm not a kid! You're being rude—Mister!” he added with a huff. He stood and crossed his thin arms over his chest but his eyes were twinkling mischievously._

_Thor grinned toothily. He grabbed his newspaper and dropped it onto his lap._

_“What's your name, young man?”_

_“My name is Loki,” said Loki the Not-Kid, suddenly shy as he tipped his chin down and brushed a pale hand over the back of his neck. He was precious wearing the club's circumscribed white tennis outfit but his shoes were black and green, his tennis racket was nowhere in sight, a pair of silver headphones rested on his collarbones, and one long-ish lock of wavy black hair had come loose from his hair tie._

_Those green eyes looked up at Thor from beneath those pretty lashes. Precious and rare. The combination of angles and proportions and demeanor, or pheromones, whatever—that wordless Thing which anchored Thor's attention—Loki had it._

_“Nice to meet you, Mister.”_

_Thor caught himself in time to avoid biting his lip at a teenager in public. Loki could call him a Lot of things, he decided. Thor checked the rest of the canteen with his peripheral vision and, considering himself safe, tucked in._

_But Loki had something that made Thor pause, which was rare. He knew virtually nothing about kids, but he was certain Loki was at least twice as old as he should be to be carrying around that stuffed doggie._

_“Who's your friend, sweetie?” He tested the flirtation—it passed with a sweet smile—while he extended his hand towards the toy in a gesture that middled between a point and a grab._

_“Laurie.”_

_“Laurie! That's a funny name for a dog! Are you into sports, arts, or video games, sweetheart?”_

_Loki did not withdraw, so Thor pushed: he leaned forward enough to stroke the doggie's head, their fingers brushing in the action. Then, he kept stroking (the dog)._

_“I do mostly fencing, and tennis when I'm here, but I like computers and games, and I want to learn coding. Have you ever...” Loki trailed off, a look of doubt crossing his face. Thor nodded encouragingly. “Have you ever heard of Metal Gear Solid?”_

_Thor grinned. “I have over two hundred hours logged, according to Steam.”_

_Loki's eyes widened. He inched closer._

_“Do you know the Witcher series??” Loki asked with audible hope. “I don't just like the action—some series have really strong story telling… My mom calls every game a 'shoot 'em up' game. That's what she always calls them, literally. 'Shoot 'em up'. It's embarrassing.”_

_“It's so annoying when someone butts into a conversation without even knowing what's being spoken about,” Thor commiserated. “But you're exactly right, Lo, it's another kind of storytelling if that's what that game is designed to be!”_

_Loki tucked his chin and smiled up at him._

_Oh, honey_ babe...

_“Do you like hanging out here, Loke-Poke?” he asked, still stroking the doggie and Loki's hand, and gradually leaning back, gradually pulling Loki's arm closer._

_Loki giggled and blushed at the nickname. Sweet as a peach._

_“We don't hang out a lot together when we're here. It's mostly me and my friends, or me and family friends. Mum's probably with the horses or at the bar. Dad's playing tennis or...he might have left again,” Loki said, his voice growing softer and his shoulders began drooping. Thor went for it._

_“I bet your father's busy a lot, huh? Do you miss him?”_

_He leaned fully back in his chair, reeling Loki two steps deeper into his personal space. Smiling, Loki came along easily without a single sign of unease._

_“Have you seen any cuff-links around here? They're silver and my Dad's.”_

_``_

_Thor retrieved their order from the canteen and brought it over to their table like a gentleman. The hamburger with fries and the Not virgin piña colada were for Loki. He dug in happily, smiling up at him about their little secret when he took his first sip through the straw._

_Thor had ordered calamari. He had the cook make it tough; he liked the feeling of ripping off bites with his teeth and crushing the chewy flesh in his mouth as he watched Loki. The boy fidgeted attractively, as though he was so nervous of losing Thor's attention he had to draw Thor's gaze by continually moving. No chance of that (The fries had left grease on Loki's lips—they weren't an obtrusive pink, but the soft, natural flush of capillaries in the skin. Raspberry. Cute.), but he couldn't let Loki know that._

_Thor ate up the details: There was grease on his fingers, too, almost making the pink and white crescents of his fingernails appear shiny with polish. Even his fingernails were cute._

_Loki's parents were getting a divorce. Loki wasn't getting the attention he needed. He felt like it was partially his fault and both of his parents were too busy to spend time with him lately, not that he really wanted to hang out with them, Loki seemed to want to emphasize._

_Neglected and unsupervised. Just what Thor liked to hear._

_He could already taste the tender boy-flesh._

_Some atrocious racket began, and it seemed to be coming from Loki's shorts. Loki mouthed 'Sorry' as he pulled out his phone and answered it._

_“Hi, Mom! ...I'm hanging out with a new friend.” Loki paused. He ducked his head as a silly grin spread over his face, and he rose from his chair and walked towards the wall opposite their table in the canteen. “He's tall...and blond...”_

_Thor smirked. Baby had no idea…_

_Loki's outfit was not form fitting, save for his tennis shorts which were just tight enough that Thor enjoyed himself while Loki faced the wall. He had a cute butt. Thor wanted to bite it._

_But not his other tender parts, no—he wanted those perky and happy to see him. Sometimes he had to 'teach' them what felt good first though. He didn't mind._

_They probably already were beneath those silly clothes. Thor shivered—Loki's looks were unreal, and he wasn't even high. He'd witnessed three living specimens who came within Loki's destruction of the upper limit of Thor's Cute Scale, but if he stood them side by side, Thor would forget they were there. There was no way he was getting out of this chair without his newspaper in front of him._

_He wanted the usual points of fixation, like his virginity if it still existed, plus the smell of his hair, the plane of the nape of his neck, his nervousness, his embarrassment, his fear, his gushing adoration. The sweat off the backs of his knees. It wasn't precisely those things, but the idea of possessing the greatest degree of him, even the things Loki had never thought to give a man._

_Loki had already given him his number, his Instagram, his Twitter, and his Snapchat handles. It was uncanny how beautiful he was and how easily their interaction began going in the direction Thor needed. He could probably pick him up directly from school if he wanted to, which he didn't, but this cutie was reserving nothing from him so far._

_Loki finished up with his mom and came back to the table, smiling That smile at Thor on the way. Thor returned it, maintaining eye-contact as long as Loki wanted it._

_He had no idea how obvious his crush was. It was almost boring._

_After they finished lunch, Loki suddenly snapped upright. “I forgot!!! I still haven't found his cufflinks!”_

_“Do you often lose things and ask for strangers' help?” Thor teased. He couldn't care less if Loki got his ass whooped by his father—it might even do Thor a favor._

_Loki blushed adorably, in the way a person can be adorable and create a sudden, acute need in the admirer to get them on their dick._

_He began listing on his little fingers. “I checked the tennis courts, the kids clubhouse, the pool patio, the dining room...the lounge...the stables...”_

_“What were you doing carrying his cufflinks around with you anyway?”_

_“The changing rooms!” Loki cried. “The ones behind the pool! I didn't check there! Come with me, please?”_

_Mary Mother of God._

_“It always seems like they're just for the older men… I'm shyyy…”_

_Thor was already leading him towards the changing rooms. The first day was Not the day he could cash in—boys Loki's age thought they knew what they wanted and chickened out when it appeared—but Thor's mouth was already watering, the voices of experience already fading to a quiet, distant hum in the back of his head._

_Loki skipped ahead of him, nudging his hip against Thor's as he passed him, moving just slowly enough for Thor's hand to reach out and run down the curve of his back before they both disappeared into the doorway._

_“Sweetheart, I don't see them anywhere,” Thor called once he'd determined they were alone and went through the motions of a searching circuit of the changing rooms. He came back to the changing stalls. “Are you su—” Loki was changing in one of them._

_At least someone had the bright idea to put proper doors with locks on these things. He leaned against one of the dividers and looked, without subtlety, through the crack beside the stall door. It was dim and Loki was still working on his shirt at that very moment._

_Thor placed his hand over the top of the door to feel how thin it was. Painted wood with vents, like a posh restroom; probably not sturdy, but the hinges were new and thick. He could handle it._

_“Hey, baby,” he growled softly through the crack._

_Loki whirled around and one wide green eye locked onto his. He yelped as a delicious flush burst in his cheeks and then bled down his neck and arms, and what little of his chest was now visible behind the shirt bunched in his hands._

_“Don't be scared. You're very pretty.”_

_And that grin again—peach was crushing so hard…_

_“But I bet you hear that all the time, Lo',” he murmured through the crack. “How many boys you have chasing after you? I just wanna be the one you choose.” His grip on the door tightened._

_Loki giggled and turned a bit, giving Thor just a little more to see. “You like me?” he asked, with the tone and grin of someone who just wanted to hear it stated aloud._

_“You know I do, cutie. Who are you texting? Put your phone away and pay attention to me.” Or he'd make him—he pulled lightly on the door, just testing the strength of it._

_“I gotta go now,” Loki said. “I'm meeting my friend. Don't make me late, Mister...”_

_“You have all the time in the world, honey, just spend some time with me.”_

_Loki held his phone before Thor's face through the crack, the log of texts between himself and someone named Helblindi presented clearly. Another text, from Helblindi, popped into the log as he looked: “Got it. I'm in the Lexus in the back lot. I'll call them if you're not out in 5.”_

_Thor held in his growl and didn't let his soured mood show on his face. He had to play nice for now._

_“Okay, sweetie, have fun with your friend,” he said pleasantly and went to the wall opposite the stalls. Just one more look before he let him get away._

_He heard the lock unlatch and swore aloud when Loki stepped out—they weren't shorts if you could see ass!_

_Before Thor's eyes had even a full second with those legs, Loki dashed swiftly out into the backdoor that led outside to a rear parking lot. He waited in the threshold for Thor._

_“I have to go now. My friend is expecting me,” Loki said. “But will you hold onto Laurie for me? Please?”_

_Thor laughed. “Come back here and I'll give you something to hold onto, babe. If your friend has eyes, he'll forgive you anything.”_

_“My parents believed me about the other two.”_

_Thor blinked. What was that supposed to mean?_

_“It's one or the other, Thor: **yes** or **no**?” Loki demanded. The little chit..._

_His slim body was silhouetted in the light coming through the door as he held the stuffed doggy out to him, while his older, newly licensed friend waited in the car outside._

_Thor's heart stopped dead—_ the kid knew.

 _“Well?” Loki prompted, shaking the dog at him._ “Safe-keeping. _While I'm out.”_

_Mutely, Thor took the toy and watched as Loki ran out the door in those tiny shorts—those mother_ fucking _shorts and the lily-white ass peaking out of them._

~

On a sunny Friday morning in May two years later, Thor parks his silver Maserati on the curb of Farbauti's property at 9 o'clock sharp and glares at the front windows of the house until his ex-wife's face appears at one of them and promptly disappears.

He is always punctual for his custody weekends with his former stepson, he doesn't bother calling or even texting Farbauti the day of, he doesn't bother getting out of his car and walking to the door—and when she comes onto the front steps to see Loki off, Thor also does not bother to wave. 

He doesn't even roll down his window to shout at her across her league-long lawn.

As he checks that his phone is still working, he simmers. Their custody agreement legally grants Thor a few weekends each month, which in _effect_ means his Russian bulldog of a personal assistant gets him only as many weekends with Loki as she can squeeze out of Farbauti's personal assistant. As of today, Thor hasn't seen Loki in almost a month because Farbauti wanted to have a two and a half week 'family' vacation with Loki and her new husband, Svadilfari, in two parts: 1) cruise, 2) Turks and Caicos, Thor's right to the back of the line.

So there are a great _many_ things Thor can't be bothered to do where she is concerned.

Or Svadilfari.

It wouldn't be so bad if the jackass wasn't making nice with _his_ boy—wouldn't be so bad if Loki hadn't decided to text Thor photos of every single gift Svadilfari gets him—Thor knows he is being manipulated but by now he is in too deep to bear to be left out of that information.

Wouldn't have been so bad if Loki'd had actual god damn reception while on vacation, and the cruise ship's wifi wasn't shit— _or someone was giving him something else to do with his hands..._

The leather on the steering wheel groans under his grip. 

He'd known the day he met Svadilfari.

The circumstances of their first meeting were such that neither Thor nor Svadilfari ever directly acknowledged having encountered each other that day, not even to each other. Officially, they didn't meet until much later— _after_ Thor and Farbauti's divorce had been finalized and Thor attended a small party in celebration of Loki's graduation to the next grade in school.

But then Svadilfari was on Farbauti's arm, looking as proud and secure as Thor had once been after inserting himself into that very position in the Ymirssons' lives. But to see Svadilfari there and _Oh, dating four months and he's moving in?_ was a dropped bomb his temporary shock had transformed into a waiting landmine. Only the buffer of numbness held Thor together long enough to get through the party and leave before all of the varied, dreadful possibilities converged on him—which was for the best; Thor wasn't “good” at handling feelings—his or anyone else's.

Svadilfari hadn't said 'I do' to his _mother…_

He wouldn't have dared on the cruise ship, would he?

Thor pictures Loki, all little, lean, and milk-white lying on the ship deck with nothing but his hair covering his shoulders and his clingy swim shorts being—

_Clingy._

Loki wouldn't have _let_ Svadilfari get him alone, either— **?**

The sound of the passenger door opening rips him from his thoughts and he takes a deep breath into what he realizes are starving lungs. Loki plops down on the soft leather of _his_ Maserati, is destined for three days at _his_ house, and is looking cute wearing skinny jeans and absolutely swimming in _his_ old AC/DC t-shirt.

And this is all Thor needs to see for his heart palpitations to stop.

He also needs to increase his blood pressure medication.

The passenger door is barely shut when Thor punches the gas pedal; the tires screech, Loki squeals, and the Maserati speeds over to the secluded cul-de-sac where only two very old couples live with their weak eyes in their big houses at the far ends of their properties. He jams on the breaks and puts it in park, not bothering to turn the engine off as he disengages his seat buckle and swings one leg over into the foot space of the passenger seat before Loki can say _whatthefuck._

Loki is still reverberating from the sudden stop and clutching his overstuffed bag to his chest. Thor grabs the thing and throws it carelessly into the backseat.

 _“My new Alienware!”_ Loki squawks.

Thor settles himself comfortably over his former stepson, tangles one hand in his pretty black hair, and pulls him close.

“I'll buy you a new one,” he says, and shoves his tongue in deep.

It's probably from Svadilfari anyway.

~

Simply seeing Loki in his house is relief enough to take more than the edge off his jealous tension; but then when Thor closes the foyer door behind them, he gropes Loki's ass and the boy stays for it. That he _remains_ , tightly wrapped around Thor's middle as he finally gets his hands on him again—it is the same feeling as tearing off his business uniform at the end of a hot, hellish workday.

Thor grabs the backpack off Loki's shoulder and thrusts his arm outward; the weight of it is promptly gathered by servile hands and silently borne away by a member of staff who knows well enough how to keep his job.

Thor corners Loki, crowds his former stepson against the wall until he is breathing his air and soaking up his wide-eyed, green gaze, their foreheads as close to brushing as they could be despite the height difference. Then he grabs him and hoists him up so his little legs wrap around his waist and he traps him between the wall and his chest.

He had been a burning ball of rage the past three weeks but, god, just how relaxed, _pliant_ Loki becomes in his arms; how his belonging to Thor manifests bodily; how Loki at this very moment turns his chin down and bites his lip prettily the way Thor likes—all that toxic emotional sludge is pouring down the drain. He is so little, there is no way he could have given any of himself away to Svadilfari.

Thor kisses him, but it is not a kiss so much as an unconscious attempt to devour his boy. **Relief** (noun): _the consummate satisfaction of humping your teenage stepson against a wall._

“Mine?” he pulls away to growl instead of ask, because wealth, decades of steadily expanding self-assurance, and terrified employees aside, he cannot bear to ask directly if Loki is sharing this with another man. Another _boy_ Thor might tolerate, but a man—

 _“Daddy,”_ Loki coos with the voice of an angel.

Thor's eyelids flutter shut while his cock throbs and his dysfunctional heart does something else wrong.

He takes Loki's wrists in his hand and pins them above his head. They can still pretend Loki depends on him for everything, can't they? He kisses him again, sealing their mouths together with the pent-up lust he'd stored this past month, partly out of convoluted anger towards—a lot of people, he can't pick one.

 _“Thorrr!”_ Loki whines when Thor gets overeager. “Mom got me up to pack at six this morning!”

That snaps Thor out of it. 

_“What?_ She knows you have a second of everything here.”

“She literally kicked me out of bed to pack my stuff and then made me hang out with her in the gym for three hours. She couldn't run fast enough on that treadmill to shut the hell up,” Loki spits.

The news makes Thor _growl;_ the flare of instantly scalding anger is the sort that comes from years of interpersonal debris between ex-spouses. Besides that, Loki is _his_. That Farbauti gave him life is irrelevant.

“She wouldn't let me leave to get food!” Loki cries. His face grows pink and his eyes red and then tears start rolling down his cheeks. “She wouldn't stop ranting about you an-and telling me every second I spend with you is a piece of my life lost and wasted, and I haven't eaten since last night!”

Thor stares at those tears as he tries to sort the whole thing out for himself. Either by instinct or his own good luck, people rarely come to him when they need a shoulder to cry on. To Thor, people in distress are similar to art class to a maths-and-science kid; years ago when his mother was visiting him in Manhattan all the way from Nebraska, she began crying at him in the restaurant after receiving a call that Odin had been taken to the hospital for a heart attack. Thor ordered her _a cab._

“Thjazi wouldn't give you food?” he asks even though that's not the point.

 _“NO!”_ Loki yells. “Mom told everyone to stay out of the gym! She started firing staff for no fucking reason weeks ago, even while we were on vacation!”

But over the past two years, Loki has told Thor a lot of things: when to hold him, what to say (and what to keep to himself) when Loki is proud of something, to tuck the covers back over him if he messed them up in his sleep, to say “I didn't mean to make you cry” when he means it because Thor doesn't apologize and he cannot grasp what “sorry” is supposed to feel like anyway. The various “Daddy things” Loki requires if Thor wants to keep him **and** avoid his tantrums (he can _shriek_ and Thor Hates screaming).

“I don't want to go back to her, Daddy, _I don't want to,”_ Loki pleads. 

Thor holds him tighter while he cries. It didn't used to be like this—that someone else would hurt and he would feel anything—it's still a foreign tumult inside.

“Don't take me back to her!” Loki cries, and Thor clutches him even tighter, rocks him from side to side like Loki taught him. “You can't. You can't take me back on Sunday.”

If the judge decides in Farbauti's favor, it's over. Fucking with the custody agreement now could make it harder. 

It didn't used to be this way.

Loki runs his fingers over Thor's face, entreating, plaintive, but there is nothing legal Thor can do about this unless Stark can find a way to sue for full custody—but is Thor now the sort of person who cares about legality?

“Hey,” Thor mutters, roughly wiping his thumb over the wet cheeks; _“Hey,”_ he says for lack of anything else. Unease paces in the back of his head, the part of him that never forgot how it felt to be played by this imp, but he is his now, his boy. 

Farbauti is pissed at _Thor_ for the divorce. She and Loki did yoga and Pilates together when Thor met them. She didn't used to be this way either.

He believes him.

“Hey, look at me,” Thor commands. “I'm going to take care of you. You're mine.” 

He'd momentarily forgotten Svadilfari, but his memory and the fear attached to it resurfaces in the space of time before Loki answers.

“Yes.” Loki nods and hiccups, looking tired and little with his eyes red and glossy from tears. “Yes, Daddy.”

Thor releases a rattling sigh.

“You had _nothing_ to eat?” he asks in order to clarify; a pattern of neglect could bolster his case, and Loki isn't always this willing to report on Farbauti's spotty treatment of him.

Loki scrubs his eyes with the back of his hand. “She gave me a grape.”

“ _A_ grape? Singular? Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“Yes… _Daddy_ …!” he whines as his stomach gives a loud growl.

Thor carries him into the kitchen. As unreflective as Thor is, a small part of him thinks how absurd he must look: carrying a child in this fatherly way, like a—a person who _parents_ , but the child in his arms is a teenager in no legitimate need of being transported like this.

He brought him into the kitchen so the housekeeper—Thialfi or Roskva, whichever one is working today—can take care of him because...when people in his house want food, they go to the housekeeper, not him. But he only releases Loki once he can hammer down the possessive desire to _keep_ holding him this way; it's gnawing at him today, so he spends an awkward two minutes glaring sourly at—it turns out it's Roskva on staff today—while she politely pretends to check the inventory on her chart. By this point, she's witnessed far worse.

Partly due to Thor's bad habit of assuming that _because_ Loki asks him to do something, it is normal parenting for a teenager. 

_Early in the morning but Not Fucking Early Enough to get to work on time anymore, an irritable Thor in a crisp Oxford blue business suit strode into the kitchen holding a crying Loki in his arms and dandling him. He caught the time on the oven clock and hissed under his breath, “Jesus Christ...”_

_“You woke up, it's over now,” he told Loki as he continued bouncing his stepson. “Shhhh. You can stop crying.”_

_He caught Roskva staring._

_“What?!” he snapped. “Parents DO this!”_

_Roskva shut her mouth and looked away._

Thor pays his staff above market average. He doesn't pay them that much to do their _jobs_ , he pays them to keep their shit together.

Roskva greets Loki warmly once Thor can finally get his hands off him, and Thor backs off to the opposite end of the informal dining area; Loki and she actually have a friendly relationship which Thor chalks up to the fact that Loki is not him. More specifically, when Loki isn't being moody, he's prone to actually being “interested” in people.

He leaves them to it while he checks that his phone is still working at all, then replies to work emails and scrolls through New York Times articles on the economy and international news.

The sounds of cooking and their catching up keep penetrating his concentration and he rereads whole paragraphs with only a vague sense of what they contain. His chest feels tight. He keeps rapping his free hand on the sideboard decorated with vintage colored glass or that may or may not be collectible—it was the interior decorator's idea. Thor tries to just choose to be okay with this cloying feeling and them taking too long because sometimes that takes the edge off.

Thor doesn't understand: it started differently, then it became a long-game situation and he married Loki's mother, and then at some point Thor sent his personal assistant to Laufey after the man was “shattered” by the divorce to persuade him to give up his legal parental rights. When Thor gave Romanov that task, it was the only time she had ever looked at him like that, but she'd been effective—far more than Thor could have been, what with his lightest touch having a side of knuckles.

Thor adopted Loki, that is the only reason he legally gets to see him now.

Did he take his blood pressure meds this morning…?

There's a familiar squawk and Thor looks up to see Roskva handing Paris to Loki. Paris bobs his red head, whistles, and, recognizing Loki, walks sideways from Roskva's arm onto Loki's and perches on his shoulder to give him parrot-kisses.

“Hey, I missed you,” Loki chirps as he pets him. “Did you miss me too, Paris?”

“Little Boy Blue!” squawks Paris cheerily. “Hey, he _needed_ the money!” 

Paris goes right into grooming Loki's hair, and Loki giggles as the bird works on a ticklish spot. 

“Hello, Loki,” Paris says. “My name is Gwen and I'm here to WAAAAARSH YER VAGINA!”

Loki praises him and tickles his tummy, making Paris flap his wings and whistle. “Batman! Illegal touch! Tap-dance?” Paris caws.

“Roskva, can you move Paris and his toys to my bedroom please? It's the one overlooking the back yard.”

“Certainly. Do you need anything else brought up?”

“Not yet.” Loki starts making hand signals to Paris and the parrot alternates between posing, freezing, or “dancing” accordingly. “Good boy! Do three more in a row and you get a treat!”

“Rowka says 'no dick for me, _thank you,'_ ” Paris declares importantly as he plays.

Loki and Roskva snigger. 

“Every now and then, I try to teach Paris manners,” Roskva says. “Not enough to diminish his...charms, of course.”

“Are my balls orphans, lady?! It's a three-piece set!”

Farbauti had _hated_ Paris, and thus Thor wanted to leave Farbauti the parrot for that reason alone, but she wouldn't preserve this fine creature so he is keeping the bird while trying to figure out how he might further bother her with Paris's recitations without getting physically near her.

Roskva is Paris's main source of care and stimulation when Loki isn't here—parrots go fucking batshit if they're left alone and bored; _self-plucked naked bird-_ batshit. Thor will have _None Of._

When Roskva accepted the position in Thor's employ, he bets she didn't know she'd spend hours a day entertaining a bird. Thor smirks.

But this is taking too long.

When he looks over at them again, Paris is perched upon the backrest of a vacant chair and Roskva is placing a plate of eggs with a side of avocado before Loki on the kitchen table. She runs her hand through his hair and gives him a fond look.

Two seconds too fucking long.

Thor puts his phone away, squares his shoulders, and strides directly towards her, his eyes cold and dead-set on hers. When she looks up, her face falls and she swiftly exits for her office down the hall without comment. 

With her gone, Thor stands behind Loki's chair, breathing too hard as he runs his hands heavily over Loki's shoulders and begins to knead. His touch is not gentle, but wandering and aimless. Paris is perched upon the backrest of the chair adjacent to Loki's, clicking and crooning softly. Loki continues eating, undisturbed by his beast of a stepfather groping him under the poor semblance of a massage. 

He gathers Loki's hair in one hand and pulls down; Loki's face tilts easily towards him, and he meets his gaze calmly.

“Daddy,” Loki says softly.

Thor releases his hair, Loki resumes eating, and Thor continues kneading.

“Ooh—there! Right there where it's tight,” Loki encourages when Thor's thumb lands on a knot of muscle. Thor works it with the meat of his thumb while his other hand continues to wander.

It's better now that they are alone and he can have his hands on him, uninterrupted. Thor sighs. 

Loki puts his fork down when he is finished and coos at Paris.

“You all done?” Thor asks although it is not a question; he is already pushing Loki's plate away.

“Yes, Daddy.”

Thor pulls out Loki's chair and seats Loki on the table top. Loki's knees part easily to allow him close and his lips are warm and yielding. Thor's hands settle heavily on his boy's waist and it feels like he is sinking into Loki as he breathes him in; the rest is gone. It's almost as if Thor had taken his blood pressure pills.

After a few minutes, Loki whimpers into his mouth, but it isn't a good sound, so Thor pulls back and looks at him.

“I'm tired,” Loki whines. He is drooping now that Thor isn't pressing him against his body.

Thor runs his hands over him one more time, pausing to squeeze wherever he feels the need to, then picks him up and sets him down on his feet.

“It's only a quarter to ten; go catch up on sleep,” Thor instructs. “We'll spend time together later. _Straight_ to bed.”

But then he catches Loki by the arm and reels him in close. His grip tightens a fraction as he takes another whiff of his hair, gives him one last kiss—on the cheek. His breath ghosting over Loki's skin, he lingers long enough to tell him.

“Don't touch yourself, baby. Daddy saved up _all_ his cum for you.”

~

_Thor arrived at the empty plaza downtown in the next town over which Loki had described. Thor had given him the number of his current burner phone and as little personal information as would be safe, and had spent the past two weeks since they met showering him with flirtatious attention via texts, likes, and Snaps, and now Loki was greased enough to be somewhere alone with Thor._

_Thor pulled his aviators down a little to scan his surroundings. It was an open area behind the main street lined with shops, the floor weathered brick and containing a few metal, outdoor chairs and round tables for eating in good weather. The three little shops forming the walls of the space were not open, although a scan of the second floors revealed a light on in a window upstairs but the blinds were all but closed._

_Loki was leaning against one of the four white wooden pillars of the pergola as he texted someone. His whole look straddled the intersection in Thor's head where unassuming-cute met powerfully sexy, and quickly fell over the edge into the latter after Thor stared at him for a whole two seconds. His hair was short-ish in back with two long locks on the sides that reached his collarbones, his sneakers a popular brand Thor recognized, his jeans skinny, and his conservative-but-clingy striped long sleeve shirt alone could have made Thor's cock twitch. He was Cute._

_When he got close—the Imposingly Close he invariably got with the things he Wanted—he saw the metal hoops in Loki's ears._

_“I've been missing you, cutie. Are these new?” he asked, boldly cupping his hand around the back of Loki's neck and thumbing the pink, inflamed earlobe._

_“They're fake,” Loki replied with a scowl, seeming unfazed by the way Thor was looming over him. He probably liked it. “My parents don't let me do anything.”_

_Loki's eyes settled upon the plastic bag Thor held and a grin bloomed on his face. He slid his phone into his pocket but he brushed Thor's hand off. “Is that for me?? What is it?”_

_Thor stayed right where he was, crowding Loki against the pillar like he would belong on top of him if he so chose. “Hello to you, too, babe,” Thor jabbed without any heat. “I picked up some nice B &O earphones I thought you'd like.” He pulled the plastic package just out of the top of the bag to show him. “You want to try them out, baby?”_

_Once they accepted the gift, he could usually bully them into going silently into his car or a secluded corner if he knew the area and felt safe._

_Loki looked at the earphones with moderate interest, but then he checked his watch, kept his hands in his pockets, switched topics; waited, while he left Thor off-balance._

_Until a middle-aged, brown-haired man approached their secluded spot. It was a Saturday but he was in a business suit. His eyes were set upon Loki like a bear trap, yet he stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted Thor._

_Business Suit had a stuffed giraffe under his arm._

_That awkward moment when two_ gentlemen _of the same variety happened upon each other, mid-courtship of the same prey._

_But the allure of the green-eyed Thing they both wanted with its gazelle-legs and cute cheeks with just a touch of baby fat left—could not be overstated: the knuckle-to-your-nose power of springtime pheromones that hijack neurons and silently re-prioritize needs and redefine “acceptable” risks… It coupled with Loki's rare and therefore precious open receptivity, to function as a primal order to get. in. here. Now._

_To two beastly creatures who just wanted somewhere nice to stick their cocks._

_Thor never believed he couldn't afford to act polite, so he took a seat at one of the tables and gifted his competitor the scrap for which he'd come._

_Under the power of Loki's down-turned chin and batting eyelashes, Business Suit spared Thor one last wary glance and went to the Thing._

_Business Suit was more scared of Thor than Thor was of him, but that was both a common defect of Thor's brain as well as the effect of his own sense of place in the world, so Thor let him have a few stolen minutes with the gazelle. Thor's shoulders were squared and his gaze cold, which meant Suit's skin would be prickling and his longed-for moments with Loki effectively ruined. Thor silently observed saccharine greetings, small talk, and the exchange of the gift for permission for those rough, dry, hungry hands to cup his cheeks when they would rather stray elsewhere._

_Thor was a better businessman than Suit, even if Loki's smile was sweeter than sweet. He tapped his phone screen on and tried a few apps to see if it had broken since he last checked, until it seemed like Suit was getting ready to leave, before Thor put his phone away and started directly toward him. Suit exited swiftly but he met Thor's eye far longer than most would as he departed, so it was with a little more satisfaction than usual that Thor took his eyes off the fleeing back of his competitor. He resumed his spot in Loki's personal space and ran his hand over Loki's head of hair and down his neck. His hand settled on the thin, narrow shoulder firmly enough that Loki would have to really try to push him off._

_When they were alone again, Loki turned his face up to Thor's as though he hadn't noticed a thing._

_“What do you think of Svad? I like his cufflinks,” Loki crooned as he hugged his stuffed giraffe._

_Thor snorted—cufflinks again. Loki gave him a cheeky, unguarded smile and cocked his hip, not even glancing at the bag with the earphones._

_“He's called 'Svad'?” Thor sneered._

_“I like his gifts better. And Randall's.”_

_“Stuffed animals,” Thor clarified, incredulous._

_“And other stuff. They try to make themselves as nice as their gifts.”_

_Thor lightly took Loki's hand in his and began to pull him towards the main street. “Why don't you show me in one of the stores around here what you'd prefer? That way I'll do better next time.”_

_Loki made a face and stayed right where he was. “Nah, I want to see what Randall has for me next, and I don't want to be late.”_

_That little dick… Thor switched gears._

_“I don't like that you're left alone with these guys. You're so pretty, they might lose control of themselves and hurt you. You're very brave, Loki, but do you really feel safe with all these strange men?”_

_“Men like you?”_

_It would have been a challenge if Loki hadn't been batting his pretty eyelashes and sucking on his knuckle._

_Because of that batting and sucking, Thor just wanted to throw him over his shoulder like a sack of adorable potatoes. (He wasn't great at metaphors.)_

_“Loki, there are no men like me. When have I ever given you that impression?”_

_“I think you're smarter than most of them. So maybe,” Loki said, “you'll think of a way to stand out?”_

_Thor looked him over again. How did this little titch…?_

_Loki had presented a clear message and Thor was already working out his next steps even as he internally denied the possibility that he might wind up negotiating with rather than manipulating someone decades younger than himself._

_Thor was not much of a manipulator given his lack of interest and intuitive understanding of “internal workings” of a thing. His success in this arena came to him through the good fortune of his looks and base, natural instinct. He sweet-talked a bit, he intimidated, and he bullied cute things that couldn't even begin to have the ability to stand up to him, before (usually) disappearing fairly quickly._

_None of his targets had ever shown pluck or savvy._

_Loki was not starving for affection or attention, so Thor couldn't count on withholding any of that to get squat. That also meant Thor had competition—Loki had options and whomever fell short or didn't shape up wouldn't be missed. Already, Svadilfari's gift had pleased, but he'd been passed over in favor of Thor—for the moment._

_The weirdest of these things was that Loki was wise enough to drive these points home to Thor._

_He didn't like it. For someone less attractive than Loki, Thor might have dropped the whole thing right there, but Loki was That Cute—and perhaps the most potent thing of all: he wanted Thor. Not in the unsure, half-formed way of others his age, but as though he'd already Been There and Knew—and knew enough to want more of it from Thor in particular._

_And now he was issuing hurdles to jump._

_It irritated Thor, but he also kind of liked that. Competitive by nature and all...he'd have fun knocking his competitors out of the water, if Loki even managed to keep his legs together that long._

_“How many figures does he make?”_

_Loki blushed and looked down, an embarrassed smile rounding his cute cheeks. “I don't know!” he said and tucked one of his locks behind his ear._

_Little shit. But he was cute, and Thor's grin had already turned wolfish._

_“Come on, where'd you meet him?” he asked playfully, poking the dip in Loki's waist. Loki giggled and Thor poked harder until Loki started slapping at his tickling hands. “What does he do? Does he tell you you're any less than the cutest little thing in this hemisphere?”_

_He'd hoped Loki would drop the stupid giraffe onto the floor—it was too blah for Loki—but he held onto it and kept cuddling it. Thor teased with a charming, confident grin, “That a teenager still wants stuffed toys is a surprise...”_

_“My father is going to pick me up in a few minutes.”_

_But—and Thor smiled to himself—who or what was he to judge?_

_Loki nuzzled his new toy as Thor gave him a thorough once-over, thrice._

_“I want to see you next week, honey. What do you want me to bring you?”_


	2. The Eye in the Octopus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E / You see things that nobody else sees!

Twilight is changing the sky that same Friday and Thor is sitting in the jacuzzi in the backyard near the row of cherry trees because he cuts down on work whenever Loki is staying with him. He's just finished checking his phone and he sets it back down on the bench with the towels, a safe distance from any splashes. He turns his head to watch Loki approach, still wet from hopping out of the hot tub a few minutes ago to retrieve the two drinks he's carrying in his hands. He looks cute—he always looks cute—and the leftover water makes him shine a little everywhere except the black swim shorts that cling to his skin from beneath his iliac crest to just above the knees.

Loki sets the drinks on the side of the hot tub and Thor steadies him as he steps back into the water.

He ropes his arm around Loki's waist and pulls him onto his lap, which means he has to bend to let Loki lean back over to get the drinks but Thor is more than accustomed to inconvenient and illogical impulses to get his hands on his boy.

“Gin and tonic, old man,” Loki chirps as he hands Thor the restrained counterpart to his own drink.

Thor stares at Loki's flamboyant concoction with small smile. In a tall, rounded glass, there appears to be a red slushie of what smells like passionfruit, coconut, and pineapple, with a slice of mango sitting on the rim, topped with six maraschino cherries on a cloud of whipped cream. 

“You made that yourself, didn't you,” Thor comments as he takes a sip of his old fashioned drink.

Loki nods vigorously with a pleased “Mm-hm!” and takes a long sip through the spiral straw; he loves sweet stuff.

Thor gently pulls him closer on his lap so he won't slosh Loki's drink, and settles more deeply into the water. The water jets create a soft, constant background noise, the heat is welcome, and the feeling of Loki's skin even more so.

It's good to feel him, solid, against him again. He wraps his arms tighter around the small of Loki's back, anchoring him after almost a month without. A _lean_ month—Thor laughs to himself—like if he had three of them back to back, his ribs would start poking out.

He doesn't know if he misses Loki in between these weekends, but he wants him whenever he's not around. He does not know if these things are the same.

He feels a tap against his cheek and opens his eyes. Loki is holding a couple of cherries out to him by the stem. 

“Want one?” he offers, his glass already half empty.

“You're too young to drink,” Thor says, and sucks one of the cherries into his mouth. It's a burst of sweetness on his tongue.

Loki grins broadly down at him, takes a deep breath, and releases a loud, guttural bellow like a wounded moose. 

Thor growls and shoves him roughly, but Loki manages to keep the remainder of his drink in his cup. “Never let me live that down,” he mutters.

“Mm, but you like it,” Loki replies as he takes another long sip through that ridiculous straw. He pulls off, hiccups, and giggles. 

Lightweight.

Thor moves his hands up his back to help steady him.

“Did Roskva help you make that?”

“Made it _all_ on myself,” Loki declares with pride, ignorant of his slurring. Thor smirks and takes the drink out of his hand; he sets it down at a safe distance on the far side of the hot tub and takes another swig of his gin and tonic before putting it aside.

His hands creep up his tight, little body like the jasmine creepers on the cherry trees. Loki bounces on Thor's lap to a tune only he can hear, sending little vibrations through Thor's half-hard cock and coaxing it to fullness.

Every part of Loki feels especially good beneath his hands, like Loki is made of some superior substance than the rest of the species.

Thor pulls him closer and licks a stripe along his pale, bony sternum, then captures a nipple between his lips with his eyes closed. He sucks hard, the way that makes Loki sometimes jump and yelp because he says the sensation reaches through his ribs; the alcohol is dulling Loki's senses now so he just squeezes Thor with his arms and legs and cries out like something helpless, that does not want to be helped.

He likes that sound; the memory of it is the one he saves for when he's close from a screen and his hand. It speaks to his cock like it is a separate animal, and a series of strong throbs make it swell and arch towards Loki, so pale he looks like marble above the roiling water. 

Thor pulls him back down so their cocks are flush and he grinds up against him. He has one arm draped over Loki's bum to keep him close and his free hand tangles itself in the wet, black hair at the back of his boy's skull. Loki welcomes his kisses and gives him his tongue, smaller and sweeter than Thor's although one of those details is just thanks to his sweet tooth.

“Are you tired?” Thor asks between kisses.

“A little, but—I want—” he trails off, ending in a Good Sound as Thor bites into the meat of his neck. It makes Thor instinctively tighten his hold on him, but Loki manages to coax the arm bracketing his bum down so he can lead his hand into the cleft beneath his swim shorts.

Chlorinated water, the natural enemy of all lube.

“This is a bad idea,” Thor says.

“You used to love our bad ideas!” Loki whines.

_Those didn't involve drowning._

“Switch with me,” Thor instructs, pushing Loki off his lap and onto the vacant spot on the submerged bench beside him. 

Thor stands before his former stepson's face in the jacuzzi. Loki sags against the side of the tub until his green eyes slide down to the large bulge stretching Thor's swim trunks; then he sits up, grinning and giggling and laying his little hands around Thor's thick, hairy thighs and urging him closer.

“You need a taste of Daddy's cock?” Thor murmurs in a gravelly voice, dragging his thumb teasingly beneath the waistband of his trunks without letting him have it.

Loki's eyes follow that taunting finger and he crowds in, sucking a little spot on the side of it through the fabric. The chlorine must taste awful, but Loki just spits to the side and says, _“Please?”_

“Daddy's boy,” Thor croons, pleased, as he pulls his trunks down and tucks it just behind his heavy balls.

He reaches over and dips his hand into Loki's slushie; the heat rolling off the water has melted the ice and left it a lukewarm mixture of juices. He takes a handful, then another, and letting one after another run over his cock with the intention of washing away the taste of chlorine. He rubs it along the length of it, gently moving the foreskin back and forth over the ruddy head, admiring the way Loki's cheeks are flushed so prettily as he gapes at it, the alcohol having made him momentarily stupid. 

And he would have admired how his cock looked even thicker next to Loki's little mouth were Loki not already loving the head between his lips. Thor's hand automatically locks into the hair on the crown of his boy's head as he is licked and sucked clean. Loki is even cuter for looking so earnest, the way he licks tenderly at the thick veins bulging through the foreskin as though what he was doing might hurt them if he went harder. He gives the same tenderness to Thor's balls, sucking his entire sac into the hot cavern of his mouth and lathing each ball with his tongue before softly releasing them with a kiss.

Loki comes back to the head and begins to swallow it down in increments, bobbing gingerly back and forth. Thor cups the back of Loki's head with both his hands, and begins to bull his way deeper. 

He begins rocking his hips back and forth, gaze rooted to the pink face and stretched lips, and the eyes staring prettily up at him; it makes his belly flip and his balls tighten and he fucks in properly now. The force of his thrusts is making the water slap against his thighs and onto Loki's chin, but Loki just grips his thighs and sucks until his cheeks hollow out.

His balls and belly are growing tighter, and Thor begins hammering into his boy's welcoming mouth, until he hits the better squeeze of Loki's throat in spasm because he's gone too far and too fast, but Loki makes a pleased squeal and grabs him by the backs of his thighs and squeezes.

It arrives with a tickle deep inside that he did not expect, and Thor pulls out to watch Loki get painted in his cum.

 

Loki swallows what landed in his mouth and Thor wipes the rest off his face with his thumb to feed it to him.

“Good boy,” he rumbles when his hand is licked clean. His skin is tingling and he feels content for the first time in weeks.

“You still horny, baby?”

Loki yawns and mumbles something, and Thor reaches down into the water to fondle his boy's crotch for the answer.

Thor sits down on the submerged bench and pulls Loki into his lap. He wraps one arm around him for support and his free hand cups Loki's cock in his swim shorts, and jerks him off as Loki rests against his chest. Sugary cocktails tend to make Loki somehow both horny and sleepy while wine and beer just make him silly and horny, and this is not the first time Thor has pleasured a Loki who is alternating between dozing in his arms and bucking his hips, squeezing him tight, and making some very gratifying sounds.

His little hips start to move frantically and he begins whining “Daddy” over and over as though if he doesn't Thor will stop.

Thor rubs his back and hushes him as he milks him out all over his hand.

~

_The next time, Thor bought a stuffed fox and a plush octopus because Loki never struck him as the traditional type. He brought them in a big, glossy shopping bag to their lunch date at a waterfront restaurant with a view of the marina so splendid they had a dress code: smart casual during lunch hours, semi-formal at dinner._

_Loki showed up in professionally distressed jeans and a T-shirt that at first appeared loose and modest but swiftly under Thor's roaming inspection proved to be just sheer enough that Thor's gaze anchored on a nipple, and decisively cut in the front to never conceal his navel. Thor wore aviators and his hair tied back, pressed slacks and a shirt of whatever origin Romanov had purchased for him when he didn't care enough to go clothes shopping. Upon the reveal of the shirt's label, Loki mewed and denounced the brand as 'uncool'. Thor snorted in amusement. He liked it when Loki mewed, even in dismay; Loki's lips turned so prettily when he did so and regardless nothing about Thor was flimsy enough that a little titch could shake it, even a clever, exquisitely beautiful one._

_They chatted over an Americano (Thor's) and an artisanal lavender soda topped with the cafe's own lavender ice cream (Loki's), then began to flirt over raw oysters and a gimlet (Thor's) and chicken tenders with fries with a virgin piña colada (Loki's)._

_“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Thor lied after Loki’s “Dad-Doesn’t-Take-Off-Work-Much” and wobbly bottom lip. “How can I make it better?” he asked, knowing full well what images must be flickering behind those big, green eyes from how they’d been scanning his upper body for the past twenty minutes. He grabbed his glass of water, just for a translucent excuse to flex for baby and watch him squirm._

_He pictured those thin thighs naked and crossing eagerly over his tender bits as they swelled with blood. He was sure Loki was a virgin—in the way that a famished wolf decides something is a rabbit mainly because he is famished, and it Sort Of hops like one._

_“I am very alone…and_ very _cute,” Loki quoted with a precious, little pout that made Thor want to grab him with specifically bruising force._

_His upper arm was thicker than Loki’s thigh. Loki was simply too fresh and petite to withstand a proper fucking and still blush at him that way._

_“You’re too cute to be alone.” Thor reached across the table and cupped Loki’s little hand in his, with what would be interpreted as a “protective” squeeze. He withdrew his hand less than a second later; instinct and experience told him when to lavish touch and when to withhold that carrot from a besotted boy._

_Loki’s attention abruptly shifted and he pulled out his phone and began texting. “I need to thank Jenny before I forget,” he murmured._

_Thor grabbed his wrist tightly._

_“Put that away,” he ordered smoothly. “You give me your full attention when I spend time with you.”_

_Loki’s eyes bulged and a goofy grin spread across his face. He slipped the phone back into his jeans pocket without hesitation._

_“Your mother doesn’t make time for you?” Releasing him, Thor redirected the conversation with a smirk; he liked him obedient. He also liked the thought of him resisting, but his vanity required the signs of willing surrender in his targets and they tended to be Terrible at role play._

_“She has, like, three modes: when she’s home and Spending Time With Me, when she’s home and Not Doing That, and when she’s at work. It always kind of feels like it can only be one at a time.”_

_“She ignores you sometimes?”_

_“We do activities together, but if she hasn’t agreed to it, like, two days ahead of time, it’s like ‘no’. When she’s home but it’s not Us time, I text her but I don’t honestly expect a reply. I go to Thjalfi during those times, but he’s often busy.”_

_Poor, unsupervised baby. “What does she do?” Thor asked._

_“She co-runs a nonprofit that’s supposed to make art classes remain accessible to poorer schools in the New York metropolitan area,” Loki said without taking a breath. “What’s the New York metropolitan area?”_

_Cute. Thor smirked over his plate of oysters._

_“It’s just a portion of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut where commuters to the city live. The closer you live to Manhattan, the more money you have to make to afford the luxury of a shorter commute. But you’ll learn that for yourself when you give up that chauffeur of yours. What kind of car do you want, baby?”_

_Loki blushed and squirmed adorably. “I dunno!” he cried. “One where the cars go straight up when they open?”_

_Thor laughed—of course he did._

_The shopping bag remained unopened beside Thor's chair and he noticed Loki didn't even look in its direction, but he judged he was getting somewhere from Loki's open body language, or perhaps the little, white hands stretching lazily towards his side of the table was another tease._

_His one-track train of thought notwithstanding, Thor wasn't aiming for his own satisfaction that day; this was a step in the right direction, and he was experienced enough to not mind taking it. Loki was cuter than the strongest sense of the word and he made him laugh, and anyway Thor's pleasure at the moment was the sheer satisfaction from the way Loki looked at him—the other men would be seething if they could see it. He wished he could send them all videos of it._

_When their plates and glasses were nearly empty, Thor presented the shopping bag to him without unnecessary frills, for what good was it if he made Loki feel it was Thor's job to do the real pleasing?_

_Thor concerned himself with first checking on his phone and then ordering Loki's Uber while tissue paper was torn and plushies were held aloft for a squealing inspection. They were pronounced a success, and Loki looked at him in a way that made Thor feel three inches taller. He'd never experienced that before, but it was potent enough to dissolve his lingering confusion over Loki's thriving love of stuffed animals despite his age. Loki thanked him in a gooey, sugar-sweet voice and wrapped his arms around his two new toys, his body language utterly devoid of the teenage self-consciousness assumed in every other member of his willowy breed perpetually straining towards an air of Older and Cooler._

_Thor's eye was drawn to the plush octopus's many, curling tentacles: the way they fitted into and around the grooves and planes of Loki's little, relaxed body._

_Thor thought about octopuses more often than was average. Such capacity to grip in a strange, squishy creature living in the murky depths the human eye could not penetrate. An octopus possessed three hearts, their blood was actually blue because it was based upon copper rather than iron, and they could conform to cramped spaces and move through them as long as the passage was wider than their beak, the single hard part of them. Their shape seemed to run unnervingly counter to their ability to understand and manipulate the environment around them. Only dissections revealed why they could so expertly multi-tasked the exploration of environments and unlocking puzzles: almost half of their brain cells were located in their arms. Sentient, muscular limbs, with suckers. Eight of them._

_Eight arms which, if cut off, would keep on navigating the world around them._

_Strange, but mostly just interesting and benign, and octopuses weren't a threat to kiddies in their floaties, except that one of those arms would try to get inside you._

_He'd watched a documentary about same-sex behavior in the animal kingdom that included footage of one rare species of octopus: meeting in the middle of some ocean were two male octopuses who, in the final analysis, gave no shits that the other was not female._

_Or that one of them was a juvenile._

_His reasons for watching hovering somewhere between plain curiosity, bewilderment, and a vague sensation of heat, he'd watched those five minutes of footage he later called 'octopus porn,' and his gaze kept returning to the sheen on their sliding, intersecting skin; it was the natural slime their bodies were programmed to produce, a mucus which at once protected their skin and remained a translucent, shining, clinging stain upon anything it touched._

_It was the mucus, Thor decided, that made him feel so close to them._

_The waiter arrived and asked them if they wanted dessert or coffee._

_“No, thank you,” Loki purred._

_“That will be all,” Thor declared._

_He watched Loki, wrapped up in his octopus. Remembering the length of those tentacles._

_“Would you like the check?” asked the waiter._

_“Yes,” he said. He nodded to Loki._

_“Daddy's treat.”_

_A few minutes later they were standing together on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, awaiting the Uber. Loki's hands were full of plushie but his gaze was dark and heavy on Thor, reaffirming Thor’s self-assured sense that he already possessed him, if that was possible. That Thor's age might have made him unattractive to any young person never seemed like a real possibility to him; he'd been an athletic model in his teenage years, he still never slacked at the gym, and his brawn coupled with his tailored, quality clothes always made him look like a beast in menswear._

_Thor leaned over him, caging him in just a bit against the railing as they undressed each other with their eyes. He was daydreaming of his virginity and the abused, gaping, cum-dribbling hole afterward, for Thor to keep stuffing once he’d taught Loki how terribly empty he felt when Thor was not inside him._

_That now Loki was looking at him in a way he'd never done before, was just inevitable._

_“Come by my house on Tuesday,” Loki said as he curled into the cab. “My parents will be out.”_

_Fuck and yes. He laid his hand heavily on the car door and leaned in, fully aware of how impressive and oppressive his bulk seemed, and played off it with relish._

_“Promise?” he growled softly as he filled the doorway of the little car. He bit his lower lip and imagined it was the boy's neck. “Text me your address.”_

_He wouldn't let the cab go until Loki did, and the buzzing text notification in his pants' pocket was gratifying indeed._

_“What time?”_

_A sigh. “Does it matter?”_

_``_

_“They know I'm here,” Thor repeated grimly in the doorway of the Ymirssons' house._

_Loki just smiled. He was wearing a “Let The Tigers Tiger” t-shirt, jeans, and a fez with a long, gold tassel which he kept flicking as though he drew his very life force from the annoyance it must have caused his parents._

_“Mr. Borson, you're here!” came a woman’s voice._

_That pseudonym wasn't going to save the skin of his balls as a tall, slim woman with Loki's coloring entered the foyer and strode over to shake his hand. “I'm Loki's mother. It's good to meet you!”_

_“Mrs. Ymirsson,” he acknowledged without a hint of strain in his voice. He squared his shoulders, smiled, and gave her a firm handshake. “Loki neglected to show me your photo—I would have dressed up...”_

_Married or not, she blushed like a girl and gave his shoulder a light push. “Call me Farbauti.” She glowed when she smiled, and there was No Day in the year when that would make Thor care._

_Now Mrs. Ymirsson knew his name, height, build, and face and could describe him to a sketch artist while performing a background check on him on her phone. This was So Dumb. He'd been thinking with his dick— **so fucking hard…**_

_The houseman Thjazi probably hadn't even parked his car yet and the door was right behind him, but Thor was unrattled by high risk and not uncommonly even drawn towards it, a trait his decades in business had nurtured lovingly. He'd also seen enough of Loki's legs in the all-too-short moment before Farbauti's presence was made known to remember just what he was fighting for._

_Thor prepared himself for some hardcore trust-building, ingratiating, and insinuating with the family—give them a reason why they should have him around, and not call the cops when he had no legitimate reason to be hanging around their son. He had charmed suspicious mothers before._

_“I met Loki at the club. I joined a couple of weeks ago,” he added. They were exclusive and would give him a glowing reference based upon what he had ensured they would miss in their background check._

_“I know. Loki told me,” Farbauti said, her smile glowing no less. She seemed genuinely happy and relaxed. “Loki makes a lot of his older friends there.”_

_Thor cocked his head. What?_

_~_

_She spoke fluent English and Swedish; her parents wouldn't have let her grow up any other way. Her mother was descended from Swedish nobility—a baron—and because of that she'd attended an antiquated European finishing school in her teens. Its most noticeable mark was her habit of turning her face to the ceiling whenever she laughed so her breath wouldn't blow into the face of the speaker, or so she explained._

_And also explained, but not explicitly, how close she and Loki were. Thor made the expected sounds when she showed him a photo she'd taken of them on her phone: their faces beaming with the same easy, open smile and their cheeks and noses the same shade of pink from the chill of the indoor ice skating rink. A few flakes of ice were caught in their hair, the same texture and shade of black. Mother and son, as close as breath and lung._

_“Loki,” Farbauti called into the living room where Loki was enjoying the sole company of his phone after some Accepted Interval of small talk was over, “Shall we go out to the veranda or stay in?”_

_“What, you've decided I've suddenly matured into moist, virile manhood in the past twenty minutes so now I'm fit to join your conversation? False! I deny it! I refuse your invitation!” Then he added gravely, “I shall have to don my Modesty Veil.”_

_Thor managed to suppress his smirk and his chuckle as he watched Farbauti’s face—she suddenly appeared to be either enthralled by the backs of her eyelids or concentrating on simply breathing, which made it even funnier._

_But in the flesh, when all three of them had gathered on the couch (it was vaguely surreal), Loki looked no less convincing than Farbauti's picture, his body bending gently towards her when he was talking about something entirely different._

_“Dad doesn't understand my jokes,” Loki said. “He thinks I'm serious when I'm, like, obviously being sarcastic. When there's no way I couldn't be sarcastic because it makes no sense otherwise.”_

_That didn't sit right with Thor; Loki was plainly very clever if the near guarantee of him making people laugh was any measure. He fared well in conversations with people four times his age. He also possessed a disturbing degree of wisdom sufficient for Thor to begin to begrudgingly recognize that he was treading over foreign terrain with him._

_He could make a good businessman one day._

_“We were watching a Victorian-era thing on PBS the other night,” Loki went on. “It was trying to be period accurate, up until the unmarried woman detective just...invited her crush into her bedroom. Like, did she suddenly forget how her life could be ruined if that got out?”_

_“Very inappropriate to the setting,” Farbauti agreed. “As well as completely different from the rest of the writing.”_

_“So when she did that, I said, 'They didn't have sex back then!' And my dad...just...” Loki opened his eyes wide for emphasis—“stared at me like I was an alien. Then he sneered—_

_“No one would be alive if they didn't have sex, yet he stared at me like he believed I meant what I said. He's met me!”_

_“It was funny!” Farbauti said encouragingly. “Your father just doesn't know how to talk to you, or even me anymore.”_

_“But that does mean he thinks I'm stupid,” Loki spat. He looked away and crossed his arms over his t-shirt._

_Farbauti put her hand on his knee, leaned towards him, and waited for him to turn back to her with palpable self-assurance which was unshaken Loki did not bend back into her invisible pull. Both she and Loki had a peculiarly weighted gaze that sometimes made Thor feel like a murky pond they'd thrown a stone far into, and yet were watching their probe float to the bottom._

_“Come back, min älskling,” she murmured to him and waited a spell, motionless._

_It was a stupid thought. Thor surreptitiously took his phone out and checked that it was still working while she was looking away._

_When that seemingly pointless gesture didn't work, she turned to Thor with a twinkle in her eye. “It was very nice meeting you, Thor,” she said, and the conversation ended. Thor assumed this was when he would be escorted out after a successful first meeting, and he rose from the couch with her. But then she left._

_She just left._

_She left her son in these clothes and with those looks alone in a room with a strange man at least twice his age._

_How many older “friends” of Loki's had she met?_

_Thor stared after her willowy, designer-draped form—what kind of person was she? Overly trusting, a drunkard, on drugs, on her way to press the concealed security button?_

_Or drowning in the type of denial that would one day years from now wake her in the middle of the night as the reality of her actions cleaved mercilessly into conscious awareness._

_But Farbauti only opened the refrigerator and poured herself some seltzer. She caught him staring and, as a light, flattered flush brightened her cheeks, Thor adopted the maturely contained yet inviting countenance of an eligible and interested bachelor._

_Who was not a broken and diseased human being preying upon her only son._

_He gave her his most charming grin and she held his gaze, looking over her shoulder with a smile that reached her eyes as she disappeared down the hallway._

_Then Mr. Ymirsson came in from the porch. Thor almost wanted to ask how many more there were…_

_The warmth and affection Loki glowed with around Farbauti abruptly fell away, and the perfunctory and vaguely resentful “Hey” he gave his father was an accurate synopsis of the entirety of his internal climate towards the man. The contrast was stark, like someone had turned the valve on water flowing evenly into two pipes and diverted all of it into one._

_A lesser man might have worried, but Thor was the sort to demolish obstacles rather than navigate around them._

_“Dad, this is Mr. Borson. Mom just met him.”_

_Laufey was a tall but scrawny man of Farbauti's coloring, who walked with his head forward and whose face betrayed the briefest expression at the sight of Thor that instantly sorted into the appropriate category in Thor’s head. Thor could see why Loki disliked this man who seemed very quietly alarmed even as he postured._

_Thor was already standing at full height, shoulders back, arm unhesitatingly outstretched, with his eyes locked on Mr. Ymirsson's. He strode forward and shook his hand almost crushingly, Thor's grip always tighter than that of his partner, and he finished by clapping his free hand around the back of Call-Me-Laufey's elbow._

_“Good to meet you. Loki says he met you at the club?” Thor saw him try to stand up a little taller mid-step before a slight limp ended the attempt prematurely. He must have had an injury or a surgery._

_“Yes, two weeks ago exactly. We ran into each other after I finished lunching with Mr. and Mrs. Levenson and their daughters. I have to thank Stephanie for my running into Loki, and Sarah for just being there.”_

_“Aha, you've seen the Levenson Twins! Very talented, and very 'uplifting', the both of them! How are they doing?”_

_“They are 'inspiring',” Thor agreed with a lusty laugh. “They chose Princeton. One of them will double-major in art history and civil and environmental engineering and the other wants neuroscience and nutrition, but I can't tell who is doing which.”_

_“Sarah speaks three languages,” Loki shouted from the other room, “and Stephanie’s a fitness freak. Might’ve been obvious for like half a second.”_

_“No one can,” Laufey assured Thor with a similar laugh. “As long as they never find out.”_

_“Stephanie was hospitalized for anorexia in January,” Loki interjected again. “She's the_ thinner _one.”_

_“I hear you're in finance as well. CREF?” Thor inquired as he silently began leading Laufey away from Loki, the visual evidence of how questionable Thor's presence in this house was._

_Like Thor, Laufey worked for a Fortune 100 company. Not like Thor, Laufey's was a financial services company responsible for developing the retirement provisions for educators in academic and research fields. Non-profit, lower job competition, conservative, liked making cautious bets on securities companies he knew very well. Cute._

_They talked about work, stocks, and their friends at the club until Laufey changed the subject. When Laufey asked if Thor was seeing anyone, Thor lied about being swiftly taken with Idunn, a still naturally beautiful socialite in her mid-thirties who was a member at the club and continually coveted for possessing three qualities: unusual singlehood after promising dalliances with three fine men (all ended at her insistence, it was said), retaining her youthful enthusiasm, and the power to make men feel young again._

_“A woman sarcastic enough to cause third-degree burns,” Loki interjected knowingly. “A woman who also owns a sweater-set_ exclusively for watching Netflix...”

_Thor couldn’t decide of Loki was more amusing or annoying, but he had to fight to keep the smirk off his face and plow forward with Laufey._

_But by naming Idunn, any average straight man would understand without question, and given the prevalence of aggressive business-industry men in the club, it might even be considered a rite of passage for a new, single, male members to attempt to get into her good graces, at the very least._

_Thor knew the first meeting was a success when Laufey invited him to sit with his family at the club tennis match next weekend, an event strangely limited to more senior members and their guests, and made firm plans to meet for drinks in Manhattan on Tuesday. Thor predicted Farbauti would discreetly arrange for him to have her personal number later that day, or the next time they saw each other, when her husband was out of earshot._

_When Laufey left, Thor returned to the couch where Loki was still glued to his phone, flicked his shoulder, and sat down heavily beside him._

_“You don't move and your arms are going to get stuck like that,” Thor said._

_“Do I need to inform Idunn?” Loki asked in bored voice._

_“I'm not dating Idunn.”_

_“I know. She's dull, but she follows her gut instincts. You need to keep away from her.”_

_Thor turned on him. “Are you telling me what to do?”_

_Loki gave him a soft look over his shoulder and laid down on his back, spreading his thighs and hooking one knee over the back of the couch. Thor's irritation was derailed and he began to lean in towards the enticing, exposed morsel, until the voice of experience caught up with him._

_Thor grabbed Loki's knee and folded the leg neatly over the other, and then he sat back at a more appropriate distance. He'd just saved himself from one potentially disastrous situation._

_“Your father's an idiot,” he whispered conspiratorially, and Loki lit up like a 400 watt bulb—as though it was the hungrily awaited first time an adult had ever agreed with him about something tremendously important. He was angry, and starving for someone who was on his side about this._

_Time for bonding._

_Loki sat right up, all but physically disengaged from his phone and abruptly Interested In Talking To An Adult._

_“Did he impress you or did you see through it? He's really a pathetic coward, I swear.”_

_He was so delectably cute when his eyes shone like that. Thor forgot sense for a moment and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and lingered there briefly, tempted to grab a fistful of it and pull._

_“What do you want to hear, honey?”_

_“I want to hear the truth.”_

_So he told him what he wanted to hear._

_Although later, when the incessant flicking of the fez miraculously charged the topic with enough interest to compel even Thor to ask, he did: “How did you get such a collection of weird clothing?”_

_Loki looked him right in the eye._

_“Drunk-Mom makes mistakes.”_

_``_

_Thor was not the sort of man who understood how people worked or even felt an interest in learning. Instinct and experience had forged his approach to the people he desired, one that mainly relied upon his uncommonly good looks, charm, and well-timed bullying rather than a nuanced understanding of how to manipulation. When possible, he steered interactions away from personal topics, and at that point Thor couldn't have said whether or not the “sore spots” he'd observed in Loki thus far were normal in people his age._

_Thor had no inclination to truly understand it; he was not a family man, considering himself up to that point only inclined towards bachelorhood and superficial relationships that did not require significant effort from him._

_But for sex—with a Prize like Loki no less—Thor was entirely willing to invest effort (and fully aware of its necessity—he was attuned to reality, at least, in this detail). It was as yet too soon for him to be seriously considering pursuing Farbauti in order to achieve more permanent access to Loki, but he was a wise and experienced investor who continually re-evaluated the return on investment for any rare and exquisite opportunity. At face value, the best outcome was a pleasing fantasy (as always)._

_Still, he did notice how very open Loki and Farbauti were about their familial dysfunctions with a virtual stranger...but Thor took advantages where he found them. If the long-game became the only path forward (his vanity sorely doubted it), Farbauti wasn't even going to play hard to get when he began charming her—after he made Loki want him here._

_Six months later, Thor and Farbauti were married._

~ 

Thor wakes up in the middle of the night in his bed. He must have passed out here at some point after they came inside. He checks that his phone is still working, grabs his pillow, and walks through his dark house in nothing but his sleep shirt and a pair of briefs to search through Loki's bedrooms. Loki has commandeered three in the time since and after Thor married his mother. 

He finds the light on in Loki's second bedroom; Loki is very good about remembering to turn off anything he's no longer using, so he doesn't hesitate before opening the door. 

Loki looks up at him from the floor, his face aglow in the light of his laptop. Thor doesn't mind that Loki is still awake or probably wasting his time on silly things on it, until his eyes land on the Alienware logo and he remembers it is from Svadilfari. 

The laptop is closed and Loki already retreating towards the bed before the scowl has fully formed on Thor's face. He marches right up to him, throws his pillow on the mattress, and pins Loki to the side of the bed, gripping his jaw in his hand. 

He glares down at his boy's face, scrutinizing his expression for—how is he supposed to see that? His anger is as much from frustration and jealousy as it is from a vague and rattling sense of _perhaps_ impotence, he doesn't care to use labels yet. 

_“Daddy,”_ Loki whines softly, calmly, his hands rising to gently cup Thor's bigger one holding his face. 

Thor doesn't like to feel he's being played. 

“I missed you for so long,” Loki says. 

Like right now? 

Thor loosens his grip, then drops his hand onto Loki's narrow shoulder. Nowadays 'Daddy' so often softens his temper. He can't explain why, or he can't believe how. 

Loki lifts his hand back up to his mouth and kisses it. 

Thor picks Loki up and throws him onto the bed. 

While Loki scrambles under the covers, Thor walks back to the doorway to turn off the overhead lights and lock the door. Loki can unlock it and leave if he needs to, but Thor knows his boy will get the message. 

It's not bad to wish he'd just stay in one place while Thor sleeps, is it? Just to know he'll still be here in a few hours when he wakes up this time. 

Loki pulls back the bedsheets to welcome him in, and with relief Thor slides between the silky sheets and against his warm, soft boy. 

Loki is pliant for him: Thor places Loki's head beneath his chin and presses his nose into his hair. As Thor breathes in the mild scent, he feels a vague sensation of ease spreading through his abdomen, and between his ribs, where it is impossible to feel such things, warmth pools. 

He's not sure if that's the same as feeling comforted. He drapes an arm and a leg over Loki, pleased to think of how heavy his muscled limbs must feel on him. He likes to imagine them weighing him down. 

Thor turns out the lamp and tucks in to this reservoir of warmth and softness. 

The lamp turns back on. 

“What if I need to pee?” 

“Pee in your canteen.” 

“Ew! But won't that be bad if bacteria are living in it?” 

“That 'sterile until it hits air' is bullshit. Your piss is only sterile until it meets whatever is hanging out in your urethra.” 

“But then I can't use my canteen anymore!” 

_“We can buy you a new canteen...”_

“It's wasteful. I don't want to send something else to the landfill!” 

“Dishwasher.” 

“But it still has had my pee in it!” 

“At this point, nothing has had your pee in it, so shut up.” 

He turns off the lamp. 

“Thor?” 

_“WHAT?”_ he barks. 

“I love you.” 

They are quiet in the darkness. Thor rolls onto his back and pulls Loki with him, so he is lying on top of Thor. 

“Baby,” he murmurs, and wraps his arms around him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same handle on [Tumblr.](http://radiatorfromspace.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I didn't show this fic to anyone for the _5 months_ I was writing it. I really appreciate your comments!


	3. The Lace-makers of Alençon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one ever listens! This wallpaper glistens… / (cough) syrup is still syrup in a sippy cup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring Thor's secret talents: educating the youth and jokes about prostitution.

Thor wakes up first on Saturday morning. Loki is undisturbed, his head pillowed on Thor's chest, and Thor slowly rolls him off so he can get up. Loki turns over so Thor can see down to the bottoms of his shoulder blades where the sheet has been pulled back, the same expanse of skin to which the morning light is gradually creeping over the mattress where Thor was lying a moment before.

He takes Loki's Alienware laptop from the desk on his way out. He locks it in his office and goes to his master bedroom to don his gym clothes for his morning work out. Thor fiddles with his phone and the various electronic clocks he passes before he is satisfied they haven't inexplicably broken during the night, and chooses a randomized playlist. He puts in his earphones and docks the phone in his armband—it's the one with a timer display on the outside, and he stops to look at it a moment longer than necessary because it reminds him even if he doesn’t care to be reminded. 

_Frowning on a bright and sunny morning two months prior, Thor blinked and tried to focus on his newspaper (again). He and Loki were at the breakfast table, where their plates bore only the remnants of their meal, but they were doing two very different things. For one, Loki wasn't even sitting._

_Loki was_ **wiggling** _, a simple, repetitive motion of the hips and arms, often accompanied by pointing. He wiggled here, he wiggled there, to the left, right, and at the ceiling, always silent and always within Thor's peripheral vision if not virtually on top of him, and Thor was trying his damnedest Not to notice any of this._

_Thor put down his newspaper, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath._

_“I can't handle the funk,” he announced._

_“THAT'S RIGHT!” Loki whooped with a victorious jump. “YOU can't handle the funk! ...Forty-one seconds. Damn, Daddy, I've worn you down.”_

_Thor rubbed a hand over his face and laughed._

_“'Easily fatigued' in your old age?” Loki teased._

_With a growl, Thor swiped at him and yanked him onto his lap. “I could eat you for breakfast,” he declared and sank his teeth into Loki's arm. He groped his boy thoroughly—running his hands over his shoulders, his ribs, his stomach, his haunches, his thighs, even the backs of his knees where Loki was ticklish and made him kick out with an alarmed yelp. Thor's hands returned to his middle while he had a few good gnaws on Loki's neck and the meat of his shoulder. Loki giggled throughout and lay, pliant and calm, against Thor's chest._

_He made a cute breakfast._

Back in reality, Thor blinks and decides he'll fill his canteen downstairs in the kitchen in a minute, but first he returns to Loki's bedroom, where he closes the blinds they'd forgotten the night before and tucks the sheet back over Loki's shoulders.

``

By the time he reaches the gym in the basement, he's already angry again; jealous aggression and just plain anger towards Svadilfari and Farbauti, respectively, and nowhere to throw it. So the weights for which he doesn't need a spotter get the brunt of it, and then the weight machines and treadmill leech some of the remainder.

He should take his blood pressure medication as soon as he's done in the gym.

No, he should take it when he wakes up each morning.

He raises the resistance on the treadmill a couple levels higher. He is currently at the stage where his muscles are begging for a rest, but he knows if he just persists past that limit, the next leg of his run will be easy, so he concentrates on pushing despite the ache in his muscles.

Treadmills are strange—the whole concept of training the body for something other than an actual physically demanding occupation strikes him as strange. The idiocy of running on a treadmill, towards an unachievable goal and an invisible, nonexistent milestone is painfully obvious at the moment. But as he stares at the glowing, analog numbers on the various calculation fields he has seen countless times before, he is reminded of doing what felt like the same thing with Loki when they met.

Coy Loki in those short-shorts, openly wanting Thor like a ripe peach wants to be eaten so it can dribble its stupid amount of juice all over his face—and firmly refusing until Thor groped his way toward whatever made him finally spread his legs. Months of being driven progressively crazier by this unyielding, ungenerous, peach-fleshed thing in whom he'd already invested too much time, money, and effort to turn back, if that was even an option anymore. He wondered if Loki would have called the police then—if he'd call the authorities only if and when Thor gave up and disappeared, rather than if Thor had simply broken their invisible boundaries and taken what he wanted.

He would have started by ripping those maddening shorts into halves and then shreds. And then eating them.

Always, _always,_ with the fucking shorts—who let him out of the house like that? _They were underwear._

He's still thinking about that pert, cute, little ass peaking out of those tiny, distressed denim shorts in the shower. His dick is responding favorably to the mental image but Thor ignores it, partially out of spite for his weakness. After he towels off, he texts Romanov to tell her what he wants her to do. By the time he is just finished combing the tangles out of his hair, she has replied to inform him it is done and the couturier will be there that evening. So he puts his clothes on and storms off to Loki's bedroom.

He barges into the room and wakes him up. Unceremoniously. But that probably doesn't need to be mentioned.

“I've called a couturier and she's coming tonight to make you some decent-fucking-length shorts. They are going to be normal shorts, not your god-forsaken outerwear panties, and they are not going to drive me insane, IS THAT CLEAR?” he shouts.

Loki blinks at him and slumps back down onto the mattress as if to say, _'Oh, is that all.'_

Thor can hear his heartbeat loud in his ears. He'll take his medication right after this…

“No shorter than mid-thigh,” Thor orders. “She'll make it to your measurements. Whatever fabric you want—except the god damn psychedelic custom Versace. I don't fucking care if the Pope designed it exclusively for their use; the answer is **no**.” 

Loki has the audacity to laugh. “They still drive you crazy? Even now that—”

Thor marches over to him, grabs a fistful of his hair, and pulls him up for a hard kiss.

When he pulls away, they are both panting.

Thor's gaze lands on the tip of Loki's nose. He wipes of the bit of white stuff there.

“You missed a spot,” Loki says, staring pointedly at _his_ nose.

“No backtalk,” Thor says, and returns to his study. 

~

Roskva is lucky his conference call with Honeywell just ended, or else he would not have listened to her.

“Are you kidding me?” he demands, although it's a rhetorical question; truly, her expression conveys her hope that he will address no queries to her at all. 

He stuffs his phone in his pocket as he rises from his desk chair and stomps in the direction of the bedroom in which he left Loki this morning. He thought they were done with this crap; Loki hasn't done this for almost six months.

It's absurd that Thor must manhandle his own teenager stepson out of bed just so the maids can change the sheets. Loki is a little animal.

Why Thor had decreed that the maids must change the sheets after the occupant slept in them only one night was another question entirely, which had never once occurred to him, and never would.

He strides towards the open doorway to Loki's presently occupied bedroom, around which are two maids and Romanov peering in, although Romanov's distinction is that she does no more than glance through the doorway. She meets Thor's eye and nods before disappearing around the corner, but the maids literally jump before fluttering into new positions still just outside the doorway, and just as useless.

“What are you doing?” Thor demands as he marches into Loki's room to stand at the foot of Loki's bed. Loki is lounging in bed, wearing only a pair of loose boxers and headphones, as he and Paris stare at his tablet. 

Paris flutters to a shelf on the far wall. Loki raises his eyes from the screen to Thor's face, pushes off his headphones, and opens his mouth to reply.

But he doesn't. Instead, he takes a long moment to savor a luxurious, full-body stretch and lets his head loll lazily in Thor's direction before he deadpans, _“What.”_

Thor grabs him— _drags_ his sorry ass down to the edge of the bed beneath him. He looms over Loki and rests his knuckles on the mattress on either side of his head. 

“Correct your tone,” he orders.

Loki looks as though he has to think about it for a second. Then he asks in a tone as bold and chipper as a songbird, _“Why_ -y?”

Thor grabs but Loki dodges and scrambles out of reach, and Thor, not thinking, pursues him. 

Loki slows down long enough to move his tablet and headphones off the mattress, and Thor takes full advantage, using his momentum to pull Loki down onto the mattress while getting himself into an upright sitting position. He gets enough of a hold on Loki to deliver a short series of severe claps on Loki's ass, each one temporarily interrupting Loki's wild scrambling for freedom as the sheer force of each slap registers. 

“I'll be good, I'll— _AAH!_ —GOOD, I'LL BE GOOD!”

Thor believes him and flips him over to look him in the eye. He wraps a heavy hand around Loki's neck and glares thunder down on him.

“Correct your tone,” he repeats coldly.

Loki sniffles and his eyes water but he does not resist. “I'm sorry for being a smartass, Daddy,” he says sadly. “Daddy, it—it _hurts_...” he whines, and Thor reflexively rubs his thumb gently over his cheek. Loki seems to improve slightly from the gesture, and wiggles attractively while sucking the tip of Thor's index finger into his mouth.

Thor likes it, but the maids are watching—which for some reason matters to him _now_ as opposed to any _other_ time—and he pulls his finger from Loki's mouth.

“Get out of bed. The maids need to change your sheets.”

An expression of beautiful, humble submission upon Loki's face, he opens his mouth to answer, and then impishly cries _“NO!”_ while flying out of Thor's arms and halfway across the bed.

 _“Come here!”_ Thor roars and pounces on his former stepson. Loki's a squirmy, agile little chit but he is nothing against Thor's strength: he gets a firm handhold on his boy, throws him over his shoulder, and stomps out of the room. The maids flatten themselves against the walls of the hallway as he passes, which maybe Thor enjoys on a sadistic level, but he continues on his way and carries Loki through the threshold of his second bedroom. 

His heart is hammering in his chest and he should probably make completely certain he took his blood pressure medication this morning, but the second Loki's ass touches the mattress, Loki releases a soft croon and drapes his arms invitingly around Thor's neck.

He should check his phone again...

Thor has about one third of a second before that little slip of a thing drags him down into the sheets with him.

They make out hungrily until Loki abruptly pulls back. Thor asks him what is wrong but Loki says nothing; he is staring—almost marveling?—at the skin around Thor's eyes. Gently, he runs the pads of his thumbs over the little creases there, little lines deepen and multiply every year. He does this as long as Thor lets him, which is until his cock throbs insistently and he flips his boy over onto his hands and knees, lubes his cock with the bottle from the nightstand, and starts fucking his inner thighs.

Thor bites into the meat of Loki's shoulder and squeezes his little waist between his big hands. This is all for Thor's pleasure, yet Loki still purrs as Thor hammers out his frustration and anger between his thighs. There is a flicker of something like gratitude on the edge of Thor's consciousness, but it is promptly forgotten in the hot crush of tender flesh. 

He went so long without him.

An uncomfortable and unfamiliar sensation forms in his belly, perhaps some crude precursor to loss, and it reminds him of rock climbing when the stone is wet with rain. He does not like it, so he slams his hips faster until the feeling is drowned out.

He hears the door shut with a crisp _'snik'_ between slaps of flesh, and he mutters a reflexive _“Thanks”_ to the maid.

~

They spent time together afterward, Thor toying with the smooth skin of Loki's thighs as Loki foisted his favorite hyper pop-y-electronica-awful bands on Thor, while Thor in turn exposed him to yet more beloved tracks from AC/DC, Queen, Led Zeppelin, the Scorpions, and Aerosmith. Loki shared gossip and did impressions of his mother and the most distinctly irritating members of the club until Thor laughed so hard he could not breathe and they nearly broke a lamp. They played with the idea of escaping the country, made “plans” about what they would do once they arrived in Morocco or Russia or really anywhere they'd heard had nice parts and had no extradition treaties with the United States to worry about once Farbauti pressed charges for 'child abduction'. When Loki went into details about how he wanted _Their_ bedroom to be in the new house, Thor pressed his lips to the most tender part of Loki's neck and slid his fingers gently down to the neglected cock between his boy's pale thighs.

Afterward, Thor had to spend a couple of hours working, which kept him until suppertime—which they have at the unnatural hour of 5PM when Loki is home—and when Thor walks into the dining nook eight minutes late, he is still breathing fire because of the last conference call.

He finds Loki at the end of the table, cutting his steak and broccoli into neat, bite-sized pieces like a well-mannered young man. 

Thor strides over to him, grabs the utensils out of his hands, and proceeds to cut the rest of his food for him. Loki relinquishes them without protest, and Thor tries to both breathe and make conversation at the same time.

“I ordered you a new laptop. Same model and brand as the other,” he says as he slices through the filet mignon. “It should be here by Monday—is this _medium_ -rare?! You like rare, right? _ROSKVA!_ ”

Loki leans into him and nuzzles his arm. “I changed my mind. I like medium-rare best now.”

“Yes, Mr. Odinson?” calls Roskva, quickly materializing in the doorway.

“Never mind, forget it,” Thor snaps. 

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Is that all?” he asks Loki.

Loki blinks up at him. 

“Do you like your dinner, Loki dear?” Roskva inquires politely. “Is there anything else I can get either of you?”

“We're fine,” Loki answers. “Thank you.”

“He says he's fine,” Thor snaps at her. “Thank you. Go.”

“Of course, Mr. Odinson. Enjoy your dinners.”

Alone, finally.

He cuts up Loki's broccoli, then takes a seat at his place setting opposite from Loki.

“I copied everything onto an external hard drive. I'll give it to you after dinner.”

He feels Loki's eyes on him, but he sets upon cutting and stabbing at his own food.

“Did you look at my stuff?”

“Eat your dinner, Loki,” he says and takes his first bite. Good; actually better than good, but it always is and he's ceased to care. He pulls out his phone and checks if it is still working.

“Did you look at my stuff? What did you do to my laptop?” 

Thor glances at him. The color is rising in Loki's face, as is the tension in his voice, but he knows better than to demand things of Thor. 

He swallows a bite of the steamed broccoli and reaches for the back pocket of his pants. “I'll give it to you now.” He pulls out the external hard drive and places it on the table, in Loki's reach. Then he returns to his dinner.

He watches Loki hold it close to his chest. Loki is silent for a while.

“Eat your dinner.”

“I don't want to go back,” Loki murmurs to his plate. Then he shakes his head and says, with sudden vitality, “Let's go to Morocco! I can't go back!”

“Mr. Odinson,” calls Romanov. Thor turns to find her in the doorway, her work phone in hand. 

_No._

“Who is it?” he growls dangerously.

“Svadilfari.”

The crystal vase full of flowers once on the table, is now flying away from the wall in a hundred pieces. 

It isn't the satisfying sound of its shattering that pulls Thor back to reality, but the startled cry that comes immediately afterward. Thor looks over to see Loki getting out of his chair and swiftly backing out of the room, and Thor's stomach drops. He runs after him, his thoughts an unintelligible blur moving faster than his feet in the two seconds it takes him to reach Loki and gather him into his arms. 

He clasps the wheezing bundle to his chest. “I wasn't aiming for you, baby—Daddy never aims for you, you know that don't you, sweetie...”

“I'll tell him you're unavailable,” says Romanov, and disappears.

For legal self-preservation, Thor no longer permits himself to have Svadilfari's contact information on his personal phone; he deleted it all and gave control over that information to Romanov—one of the dwindling number of mature decisions he’s made in the past two years. Any and all communication between himself and Svadilfari goes through her.

“C'mere, c'mon... Daddy's trying not to do that around you anymore, remember?” Thor says as he picks Loki up and carries him back to the table. “It's over now, baby.”

He sits down in Loki's chair rubs his boy's back and rocks him on his lap until Loki stops looking like he'll leave him for Svadilfari the second he lets go of him.

“You're okay now.” Thor loads the fork and brings it to Loki's mouth; Loki refuses, turning his mouth into Thor's chest, so Thor raises the fork to his own lips, but the bite of steak is stolen off it before he even opens his mouth.

Thor repeats this action several times without comment, none of the food making it into his mouth.

Exactly twenty seconds later, they stop pretending.

~

_Things were going great: Thor, the ripped 6'3” high-powered businessman, brilliant investor, and once cover of Forbes Magazine's punny 'Capital Fitness' issue, had spent the past forty minutes on his hands and knees trying to coax a wailing teenager out from behind a bureau._

_“What do you want? I'll get it for you; just come the fuck out,” he hissed. For lack of any other ideas, he reached for Loki again and the contorted teenager's pitch rose to a shrill note, causing Thor to pull back. “Don't scream, your parents are downstairs.”_

_Loki had all but screamed every time Thor tried to physically force him out from his hiding place, but nothing else had worked either. He understood how this had happened, but that didn't mean he was willing to accept blame for it. Loki was just, just too—_

_So he'd gotten a little handsy during the movie. Was nearly an hour of wailing really appropriate?_

_Thor sat down with a deep sigh. He pointed his face to the ceiling and tried to breathe—so this was the feeling of having nothing in his arsenal. He didn't like it._

_He'd never met someone so small and unresponsive to intimidation—and fucking twisty—in his life._

_Loki's sniffles and sobs continued._

_He might have...pinned Loki to the couch…_

_What the fuck was he supposed to do to get Loki out of there and silenced before Farbauti wised up and checked on them? Thor had resorted to bribing Loki—not because he was trying to buy his favor, but because Loki did not respond to threats and intimidation in the typical, desired manner._

_But forty fucking minutes of wailing, god, his eardrums would never recover. Thank god Farbauti's house was huge, or else she and the staff would have come running long ago._

_No, there was at least one thing he hadn't tried yet—because from what he'd observed, it only worked on Little kids, not teenagers Loki's age. But Loki was also a teenager with an unabashed love of toys, so Thor's unnatural instinct raised its dripping snout to the wind, caught the scent, and leaped after it._

_Thor took a deep breath and began speaking in a sweet, crooning voice—although the “sweet” qualifier was debatable given the speaker; it well might not be comforting to an actual child:_

_“Baby, I'm sorry I scared you. You want to come out so I can kiss it better?”_

_Loki startled and stared at him, eyes narrowed in rather grave suspicion given the circumsta—okay so Thor had definitely pinned him to the couch._

_After a moment the sobbing resumed, although distinctly quieter than before (and perhaps a touch less convincing)._

_“I don't want to hurt you, sweetheart, I just want to be close with you. Is that so bad? Daddy just—”—wait, where did that come from? But Loki was now staring at him with rapt, starry-eyed attention so Thor plowed forth. “Daddy just thinks you're so pretty, it's hard to keep his hands to himself… Come out, honey, it'll be nice this time.”_

_Loki did not move an inch._

_Thor went to the couch and came back with the stuffed otter and let Loki see how nicely he was holding it. And he flexed his biceps, for good measure._

_“Calm down, Loki,” he instructed in a firm but warm tone he'd occasionally heard Parents use. Loki blinked tears at him, his soft cries subsiding into little hiccups. “That's better. It's time to come out now. We'll go to the couch and play nicely this time, understood?”_

_Loki gaped at him, and the otter, and at him again, like Thor was insane._

_...Did Loki have a boner?_

_Minutes later (read: with unnatural speed), they were situated on the couch as Thor described: all signs of upset gone, Loki calm and smiling and snuggled up with his stuffed otter, and Thor sitting with his arm around him. Sadly, lap-sitting was still out of the question, but this was almost nice—Thor's dick was so hard it might fall off, but the absence of crying was Excellent._

_“See, it's all right now, sweetie,” Thor said, sounding a bit unhinged even to his own ears as he raked his fingers through Loki's hair._

_Loki's cheeks pinked impressively on “sweetie” and the radiance of the grin on his face was downright gooey._

_From sobbing to gushing in under five minutes—abruptly, several suspicious inklings occurred to Thor, but the very Real risk of Farbauti walking in and calling the police was too pressing for him to follow up on those yet._

_“Do you want...to watch the rest of the movie?” Thor asked, patently foggy as to what he was supposed to do now or to what end. He was keen to investigate his suspicion that Loki was hard, but…_

_“No,” Loki answered warmly. He shook his head and continued to grin up at him._

_...What...?_

_“Have a blanket,” Thor said suddenly as he reached across the couch for the pink, knitted one folded up on the end. He unfolded it and wrapped, smoothed, and tucked it all around Loki and his otter, taking full advantage of the opportunity to feel up this little morsel as he did so. “Isn't that better?” he murmured absently as his hands swept over this gorgeous body held ransom until he had his way or jumped through several hoops. “You and your otter feel cozy now? Daddy wants you to feel good.”_

_It was April._

_Eyes shut, Loki released a—was that a moan. That was not a moan. Was that a moan? It was. Bottom lip biting and all. That twisty little shit._

_“That was a nice sound, Loki. Do you want Daddy to make you feel even better?” he probed, his sure hands already sliding underneath the blanket._

_Loki snapped out of it, dug his phone out of the recesses of clothing and blanket, and began texting furiously._

_“Who are you texting?” Thor demanded, swiping for the phone with the desperation of one seeing his life flash before his eyes._

_But Loki wriggled until his phone was out of reach and managed to finish that text while upside-down, hanging halfway off the couch, and somewhat contorted in his cotton cocoon. He managed not to drop the otter, either._

_Bing! Message sent._

Shit.

_“Just canceled my lunch date tomorrow,” Loki answered sweetly as he curled back up against Thor's side. He burrowed under Thor's arm and looked up at him—adoringly?_

_Thor frowned but he couldn't help feeling an extra inch taller as Loki gazed up at him like that. Then his eyes glazed as Loki tilted his chin down and made his pretty, wide eyes look innocent, worried his bottom lip between his teeth, that cute, little, sexy—_

_He wrapped his arms around Loki's little waist._

_“It's very good you did that, because tomorrow,” Thor said before he could stop himself—_

_“Because tomorrow, Daddy is taking you shopping.”_

_``_

_Loki's financial situation reminded Thor of the landed wealthy of the Middle Ages: his resources covered all of his day to day expenses, but he had trouble getting actual cash to shop or pay for activities on the scale of a kid in his socioeconomic bracket. Loki apparently had to wheedle, coax, and nag his mother for weeks to get her to take him shopping, and then his teenage dreams were still crushed under the dreaded judgment of Parental Control. He mainly relied on friends' parents for rides and generosity, and occasional guilt money from Laufey when Loki could bear to make himself speak to the man._

_So there Thor was, filling the intersecting roles of chauffeur, benefactor, inappropriate friend, and unqualified parent-substitute, and, more quietly, loan agent in a high end mall filled with designer stores on different steps of the scale. Originally, he'd planned to limit Loki to non-luxury designers entirely but then after lunch Loki gave in to his feverish, teenage libido and pulled Thor into a vacant alcove and made out with him—and Loki's mouth was exactly the way Thor wanted it to be which he knew with startling clarity despite not having enough brain at the time to think—and Thor had revised his decision: he was not taking Loki to anything above Louis Vuitton—no Dior, no Bulgari, no Hermes—until he put out._

_Thor rolled his eyes and followed Loki's cute ass in jeans not tight enough to thank the manufacturer. Thor had done this before and, beyond the possibility of enjoying Loki's company, he was reasonably accustomed to the large probability that he wasn't getting anything he really wanted today._

_This afternoon was a mature, measured investment. As though he wasn't still thinking about Loki's mouth and how petite his body felt locked between his hands._

_Loki wanted to suck his cock, and badly, no matter how many roadblocks he was trying to set before it actually happened._

_When Thor stepped out of his car in a casual button-down shirt and jeans (both tailored because with shoulders and arms like his, the only other way to show off was to go nude), he'd watched as Loki's usual hauteur fell on its ass as a shit-eating grin blossomed on his face._

_“That's...not from this continent,” Loki remarked of the parrot tethered to a perch outside the L'Occitane. He pulled Thor over to it for further investigation._

_“Do you have any pets?” Thor asked, his mind ever considering possibilities._

_“None,” Loki answered gloomily. “Mom is allergic. Or she only likes humans.” He pulled out his phone and googled for pictures. “I think it's a scarlet macaw?”_

_“Hello, there!” Approaching them was a woman wearing the clothes of wealthy middle-aged mothers who didn't work but were “actively involved” in volunteering because being charitable was more fashionable than being bored. “I see you're curious about Paris here! He's our 'ambassador' for the Stacey-Culpepper Fund which helps pay for school supplies for children in Sudan.” She patted the donations box attached to Paris's perch._

_Macaws weren't native to Sudan…_

_“What, does he tell jokes?” Thor prompted._

_“I taught him nursery rhymes,” said Bored Woman._

_Thor gave her a look which she would mistake for flirtation. “Were you Miss New York?”_

_Pathetic Woman blushed a little and tittered. She glanced him up and down, particularly his left arm, and the absence of a ring._

_“Is this your son?”_

_“My nephew. I'm thinking of joining the priesthood.”_

_Forgettable Woman shut her mouth and glanced at the floor._

_“Well, if you have any questions about the fund or Paris, let me know. I'll be over there,” she said, pointing to her booth which was half-hidden by the doorway into the L'Occitane._

_“I think we're good,” Thor replied with a sneer._

_She turned rather quickly on her heel and returned to her odd choice of location for her table, at which she sat almost as if she was unsure of whether or not she was doing it right._

_Loki looked wonderingly after her. “She's rather detached.”_

_Thor snorted. “From reality.” He planted himself right in front of Paris and enunciated clearly to him, “Little Miss Muffet.”_

_“LITTLE MISS MUFFET,” Paris echoed, bobbing his head. “I know this one! Little Miss Muffet say on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider, he sat down beside her—”_

_“And said, 'Ey! What's in the bowl, bitch?'”_

_“Along came a spider, he sat down beside her, said 'Ey! What's in the bowl, bitch!”_

_Thor grinned and Loki sniggered, stepping close and resting his head against Thor's side. Thor didn't complain._

_“Good job, Paris. You like learning, don't you? Jack and Jill went up the hill...”_

_“TO FETCH A PAIL OF WATER,” cried Paris._

_“Jack and Jill went up the hill, both with a buck and a quarter...”_

_“Up the hill...both with...”_

_“A buck and a quarter.”_

_“Jack and Jill went up the hill, both with a buck and a quarter...”_

 

 

“AND JILL CAME DOWN WITH $2.50!” 

``

_“Where did you learn to do that?” Loki asked after they finally left Paris alone. Thor checked his phone, for once also for the time—they killed half an hour with that bird! Paris and Loki had both been his pupils; Thor was quite the educator that day._

_“Would you believe me if I said it wasn't from the internet?”_

_Loki glanced down, looking peeved._

_“I had some jerks for friends in school growing up. And when you meet a jerk, his big brother is probably just a bigger, jerkier version of him, so. I had a Ms. Lisa one year who brought in a parrot for a class pet. She'd award the kids points towards a mystery prize at year's end and one of the ways you could earn points was by watching the parrot over the weekend. I also remember the Monday she stopped doing that.” Thor chuckled._

_“This is it! Come on!” Loki cried as he grabbed Thor's hand. Except Loki never led him by the hand like a normal person, he grasped Thor's index and middle fingers as though he couldn't fit his hand around any more than that, which was not true but the implications of this notion did feature in Thor's private fantasies at night._

_Thor gave a cursory glance to the name of the store as Loki led him through the doorway. It wasn't a designer storefront, but the level of the décor and the quality of the garments suggested it offered a variety of upper middle and bridge brands for, as it soon became painfully obvious, well-moneyed teenagers. Amusingly, there was an old-fashioned jukebox that at least appeared to be from the sixties by the cash registers, and a small crowd of mostly bored teenagers and the occasional adult._

_Loki led him into the lingering throng and waited, while Thor scanned the bodies of the other customers until he arrived at the conclusion that Loki was the only one above “fairly cute” there. But his eyes settled on a trio of snot-nosed brats—those gems who look Awful before they even open their mouths—ogling a mannequin in a dress decorated with sequins made from mother of pearl._

_Thor yanked his hand from Loki's grasp, went over to the mannequin, and shoved it onto the floor. Without a further glance or thought for the little twerps, he returned to the side of his own infinitely less abrasive brat, and offered him two fingers to hold again. They were promptly accepted as a small, quietly pleased smirk formed on Loki's lips._

_No one made any direct comment, which was normal for Thor._

_“What are we waiting for?” he murmured into Loki's ear. Loki was still holding onto his fingers and it was growing on Thor, in the illegal way._

_“They're going to open a new play-list soon. The highest bidder gets fifteen minutes of whatever they want on the store's speakers.”_

_“What are you going to choose?” Thor asked, wondering about the possibility of hearing loss._

_“Marina and the Diamonds—I loooove--'Oh, no!' is just, completely one of her best, you don't understa—”_

_Someone in management had novel ideas: as though flaunting social status through overpriced clothing wasn't enough, now they were commercializing the ultimate form of teenage self-expression. Thor was interested in seeing the company's SCC documents and brokerage reports._

_“Thorrrr, it's time to bid!”_

_Back to reality. Thor pulled out one of his black cards and handed it to the cashier with the words, “No limit.”_

_The lights became a dizzying rainbow swirl and a dozen fully costumed 'Retail Performers' promenaded out onto the shop floor and began performing complex choreography to Marina and the Diamonds—or that's what he assumed the speakers were blasting._

_How did anyone shop this way?_

_Or maybe the drugs had arrived this side of his blood-brain barrier._

_``_

_“You want Daddy to show you how nice he wants to be? Come here.”_

_In the confines of the changing room, Loki tried to play this off with a coy smile, a cocked hip, and feigned ignorance about the fact that he couldn't retreat any farther. Thor sat in the chair beside Loki's 'Yes' pile and slowly curled his fingers through the belt loop of Loki's shorts._

_“C'mere,” Thor murmured lowly, softly—sweetly, the way Loki loved._

_The walls throbbed with Loki's playlist in the store proper, muffled lyrics of Loki's favorite song: 'Don't want cash, don't want car, want it fast, want it hard—'_

_Those short-shorts were very short._

_His fingers curled tighter around the belt loop, and Loki began to worry his bottom lip between his teeth._

_“I'm not going to hurt you, baby.”_

_'If you are not very careful, your possessions will possess you: TV taught me how to feel, now real life has no appeal—'_

_Thor plucked the unicorn plushie from the top of the pile with his free hand, sat it upon his thigh, and began petting it. He watched Loki's eyes drop to it, his big, veiny hand moving so sweetly over his new favorite._

_“Is Daddy being nice?” he probed as he stroked the unicorn's mane._

_Loki allowed a quiet, “Maybe.”_

_Maintaining eye contact, Thor cradled the unicorn against his chest and placed a kiss on its pink snout. Loki edged an inch closer._

_“How nice is Daddy being?”_

_“If Daddy is true to his promise, I think he's being...pretty nice.”_

_'Don't need money, don't need fame, I just want to make a change'_

_Thor laughed. “I'll buy you everything you want today, but being nice is about more than just that,” he reminded him. He patted the plush unicorn again and nodded at his thick thighs._

_Loki hazarded a step closer, and Thor didn't even play fair: he hooked the index finger of his free hand through another of Loki's belt loops, and relaxed his arms so the weight of them were borne by Loki's little abs. Loki shifted and leaned back to maintain his balance, but his muscles were already trembling._

_'I know exactly what I want and who I want to be! I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine!'_

_“You've been”—Loki's voice broke and he swallowed. “Pretty close to good today, so far.”_

_That cool composure and control was finally breaking. Thor tightened his grip._

_“Pretty close? You mean I'm almost on the money? Let's see, Daddy has to buy your things, make you smile, keep his cock in his pants...what else, baby? Do you like your bear? I mean—unicorn?”_

_They both laughed. Thor realized he laughed more when he was with Loki—for whatever that was worth to a man like him._

_“Mr. Businessman who built up a net worth of three decades in under two,” Loki said, continuing to giggle, “needs to visit a zoo!”_

_'I'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy! Oh, oh no, oh no, oh no'_

_Thor smiled at him. His eyes followed the merry wrinkles that formed around Loki's eyes when he laughed like that. Warmth spread through Thor's chest; he gave his glowing boy's thigh a light, fond pat this time, the unexpected laughter having eased the tension._

_He needed to check his phone._

_He yanked Loki onto his lap._

_Loki yelped in alarm and tried to squirm off, but Thor's hands had clamped around his waist; once that registered, Loki froze like a deer caught in the headlights._

_“Shhh,” Thor hushed as one hand began to wander. “I said I wouldn't hurt you.”_

_Loki did not look convinced, but Thor held his gaze as his hand roamed over a bare thigh he wanted to bite and spread wide, then slid back up to cup the curve of his butt. He kept running his hands over him until the whites of those green eyes shrank a little._

_“You lo—,” his throat stuck from dryness and he coughed. These fucking shorts. “You look really good, baby,” he praised, his hand now massaging that same cheek. “What do you say?”_

_“Thank you.”_

_“Thank you, what?”_

_“Thank you, Daddy.”_

_He was starting to like that title. He didn't know why._

_He let Loki reposition himself then—a bit more towards his knees than Thor wanted, but—he finally had claim to touch this little body. It was a temporary one, but a victory nonetheless: the throbbing in his cock told him so._

_He gave Loki his new unicorn plushie and settled his hands heavily upon his boy's narrow hips. A diplomatic hand placement, he told himself, just above the enchanting small of his waist and back and above the tempting swell of his cheeks._

_Cheeks he pictured now spread to reveal his little hole beneath that thin fabric, while Loki opened his thighs over him. What saint-seducing gold; Thor moved his knee just so, imagined it brushing the fabric against which those little balls and cock were growing heavier with blood. Loki wanted him. Little Loki with thighs so slender, Thor could force them open if he shoved one hand between them._

_“There now; that's where you belong, isn't that right?” he soothed. “If Daddy's good, will his little boy snuggle up? Teach Daddy to be good.”_

_His fingers were already skittering like spiders over the waistband of Loki's shorts, delving a little below the top before sliding up over the grooves of his tight stomach. So pale he could see veins. He only just refrained from tearing the shirt they didn't yet own._

_Loki's eyelashes fluttered, so Thor's questing fingers began to wander up into the leg holes. Then he must have hit a ticklish spot, for Loki giggled and flailed and, to keep him from falling backwards, Thor shoved his hands deep under his shorts and grabbed firm hold of his ass._

_No underwear—he hadn't known—_

_Thor groaned._

_Once Loki recovered his balance, he pulled Thor's hands back out of his shorts and cuddled his unicorn again. He didn't say a thing when Thor's hands instantly clamped over bare thigh and waist._

_“You've picked out your new gifts, played with Daddy and the parrot, had a nice lunch… What else, baby?” He said it gently and playfully, as though he wouldn't have nailed this boy on this very chair right now._

_His thumbnail grazed over a Good Spot and the back-of-the-throat sound Loki made inserted itself into the vision of him in Thor's head: small and spread and powerless beneath him, spit connecting his gaping lips, the flush on his sweaty cheeks spreading down to his pert nipples as Thor rolled his shirt high, and bit one as he pushed inside._

_“Daddy,” Loki whined very softly, almost plaintively. What Thor would give to get him to beg for his cock like that. “I'm horny.”_

_He had to shut his eyes from just the throbbing in his cock._

_“If you were my boy, it would be Daddy's job to take care of that,” was Thor's diplomatic answer._

_“Not just that!” Loki cried, but his cheeks were glowing and his eyes were dark. Thor was ready to pull those thighs apart and just fuck in. He'd fuck Loki until he screamed and the manager and security came running but Thor would lock the door and pin his boy until he'd fucked every last trace of that cool control out of him, until he no longer attached price tags to it, until he was almost as monstrous as Thor._

_“That and everything else you need. If you were mine.”_

_“Hm.”_

_“Well, if my baby wants fun, Daddy has a job to do,” he said solemnly. This time Loki was soft and pliant when he pulled him close, and the rosy flush in his cheeks beguiling as Thor unzipped his fly. Loki craned upwards for a kiss, and Thor bore down and took his little mouth; he squeezed Loki flush against him and slid his hand down to do away with Loki's zipper. His own cockhead had already slipped the waistband of his briefs and was rubbing against Loki's bare stomach._

_“I'll take you to France,” Thor promised on a sudden whim. “Paris and Provence.”_

_Loki pulled back and smiled at him, an expression that occupied the space between “I'll believe it” and “when I see it.”_

_At that very moment, hell broke loose; an acute, personally-tailored hell to which Thor swore to condemn the next sorry fuck he met whom he wasn't trying to hump: the parrot owner burst into the changing room with her parrot, screaming, “You've RUINED my bird!” while the bird in question shrieked, “Illegal touch! MY NAME IS GWEN I'M HERE TO WAAASH YER VAGINA”—Loki leaped off his lap and fled with his clothes under his arm—and the manager ran in and saw everything Thor had out on display._

_He dealt with it—barely—with a combination of credit for purchases and cash “donations” for discretion. And became the proud owner of a moderately offensive scarlet macaw._

_But in retrospect, as far as Loki was concerned, Thor's word wound up being of higher value than with anyone else who'd had the misfortune of becoming embedded in his personal life: less than a year later, in the middle of his divorce from Farbauti, he did take Loki to France._

_“ILLEGAL TOUCH! Batman?”_

_More or less, as promised._

~

Thor's work and nuisances are dealt with for the day, so he feels almost serene as he walks out of his office. He's contemplating the possibility of having the massage therapist he has on call pay a visit, but he is definitely going to enjoy a scotch in the soft leather of his favorite chair in the basement library he rarely uses for literary pursuits, ideally with Loki seated on his lap or his face. Maybe they'll watch the game, or they'll listen to more of actor Michael Kramer's narration of _The Mistborn._ The latter was Loki's idea, to which Thor only consented after putting up with much pestering and pouting, but after experiencing it Thor thinks Kramer earned his awards and would now more than willingly spend the evening doing either. He'll text Roskva to bring in tapas in an hour or so, maybe empanadas, but he's also craving chopitos.

The alluring vision of steaming, fried calamari is still on his mind as he reaches Loki's second bedroom. He pauses outside for a moment to watch the couturier taking Loki's measurements with her paper tape and making new marks on the muslin mock-up shorts Loki is wearing. She is calm and seems engaged in her work, Loki is calm and looks happy to be waited on, and Thor is calm because he has a whole, uninterrupted evening ahead of him.

Then Thor's gaze falls to the hem of the mock-up shorts on Loki's hips.

...Why were they even shorter.

~

_Romanov appeared beside his desk with her work phone in hand—from which were coming the unintelligible sounds of a loud and passionate voice._

_Thor met her unyielding gaze with the respect he reserved for fleshy, sentient objects that could legitimately threaten him._

_“Is it Farbauti?”_

_“For the fourth time since you got back.”_

_“How bad does she sound?”_

_“Enough that I recommend you answer her call now.”_

_Thor accepted the phone she offered him and dismissed her. Once Romanov had closed the door, he turned the speakerphone on because by now he knew better than to directly subject his mortal eardrum to the enraged speaker._

_“Farbauti,” he stated._

_“YOU TOOK HIM TO FRANCE WITHOUT TELLING ME!” she shrieked._

_Well, he knew better in theory, but at the time the emotional bile of their divorce was still fresh; he grabbed the phone, held it against his cheek, and shouted directly into the receiver as ex-spouses do._

_“Are you implying that I'm the irresponsible one?! When do you even talk to him about his schoolwork!”_

_“He missed three days of school! I didn't even know he wasn't in the country until he texted me on Sunday! It's the definition of irresponsible, you fucking roid-head!”_

_“He got an A on his French mid-term. As promised,” Thor growled._

_Silence. Fuming silence on the other end of the phone._

_“I promised and I delivered,” Thor repeated, more calmly that time._

_And then—the cherished sound of the Call Ended notification; he sighed, relieved._

_Fucking bitch._

_He looked up at the front page of the French newspaper he'd had framed on his wall._

_**Headline (Translation):**_ “THE HORROR OF THE CONVENT: Drug-addict American Businessman and Teenage Boy's Sexual Exhibitionism Horrifies the Historic Lace-makers of Alençon”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same handle on [Tumblr.](http://radiatorfromspace.tumblr.com/)
> 
> The chase on the bed is when I stopped typing and put my head in my hands. They give me heart palpitations.
> 
> I didn't show this fic to anyone for the _5 months_ I was writing it. I really appreciate your comments!


	4. A Two-Handed Man's Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone thinks that we're perfect / please don't let them look through the curtains

_So Thor hadn't forgotten that Loki had multiple suitors trying to get at him, but old habits die hard, so Thor did something stupid._

_He tried giving Loki the push-pull. After he'd gotten Loki used to a lot of flattery and attention from him, Thor backed off and virtually disappeared for about ten days. Then Loki started ignoring Thor, until Thor caved when he saw Loki's latest snap in which the obscenely wide neck of his shirt slid down his shoulder and revealed just the top of one nipple while he got an ice cream cone from a friend. He looked radiant, smiling—easy—as though the camera wasn't there at all. Thor's fingers had slipped onto the call button._

_But then when Thor wanted to see him again, Loki was Oh So Very Busy! How could he manage to fit Thor into his schedule?_

_So then Thor was the one who had to put out (in Entertainment, Money, and Objects) to get Loki interested in spending time with him again. Loki was insufferably cute prancing about in that fur scarf Thor bought him (it was late spring but Loki wanted it...). The balls of rabbit fur were attached by a network of threads hidden by the fluff, and Loki kept sticking his fingers through the holes between them like fingerless gloves and letting the scarf drape around his wiggly, little self all evening long._

_“I had a nice time seeing you today,” Thor said when he parked the car at the far edge of Loki's driveway, far from the windows and cameras. Around the steering wheel, his knuckles were white in the effort not to grab anything else._

_“Tell me about it.”_

_Loki looked receptive, so Thor reached over and ran his knuckles over his jaw. Warm and smooth. His hand settled too readily on Loki's slender neck, cupping the back as his thumb ran up and down that soft, pale skin._

_“I like it when you wear the things I buy you,” Thor murmured. The crotch of his pants was too tight and it was cutting off the circulation to his brain. “It makes me feel good.”_

_“Hmm, good we have that in common.”_

_“I want to continue giving you nice things,” Thor said, only now realizing he'd been leaning closer as they spoke. Loki was a magnet._

_Loki leaned in just enough to make Thor hope; they hovered at that aching distance where Thor knew he had to hold himself in check and let Loki determine this one fricking little piece of things when that was hardly Thor Odinson Behavior. He was ready to fuck in their clothes outside in the dirt where they Would be caught, but Thor kept his other hand firmly on the steering wheel._

_“That's good, because there are these speakers I saw this morning...”_

_“Send me the link. You want me to order them now, baby?”_

_Thor forwarded Loki the confirmation order from a disposable, temporary email address. Loki smiled at him and Thor wondered if Loki would make one of his cute noises, but instead Loki finally kissed him and the next sounds Loki made were better than that. His lips were softer and warmer than Thor remembered, and Thor forgot where they were and when and his hands couldn't stop moving, for there was no place on Loki that Thor didn't want to touch and grasp. His cock throbbed when Loki wrapped his arms around him. This boy, the un/natural mate of the Odinson, was rare and priceless. His lust was heady and inescapable—when Loki's tongue ghosted against Thor's lips, he sucked it inside in welcome; when Loki crooned his name, Thor ceased to feel the car seat beneath him; when Loki's fingers merely began to delve into his hair, Thor undid his bun and urged them deeper._

_At length, Loki pulled away with a look of unsatisfied hunger. Their rumpled clothing was fully in place, and Thor's first foggy thought was that he did not know where his phone was as its familiar heat warmed his hip._

_“You're a bad man, Thor,” he purred._

_That's right, he hadn't checked it since he picked Loki up..._

_“Threat's probably neutralized at the moment,” he mumbled instead. He caught his breath and the world became clearer. “What my employees would give to have you soften me up before meetings,” he said, as he took out his phone to check that it was still working._

_Loki sighed, the bored sound of it plainly effortful which meant he either no longer cared and was done rinsing Thor, or he was too pleased with Thor to hide that he was being won over._

_“Keep seeing my mom. I'll tell her to invite you to yoga on Saturday. Don't forget to be sweet to me when you come.”_

_“You do yoga with your mother?”_

_“Mom and I do a lot of stuff together! I think you'll like my yoga unitard. And she's a slut for fringe. I'd recommend Haute Hippie when you're in the city, or send your personal assistant.”_

_So Thor plus one additional guest (Angrboda) attended a private yoga class at their house that Saturday. Laufey was on a business trip, although Thor was beginning to think the man just rarely took weekends off. Loki's unitard—while a tie-dye of obnoxious shades of green on the lime end of the spectrum—was **still** a unitard! Thor was quite happy on the mat behind him. And both Ymirssons he was courting seemed pleased with him in clingy yoga gear._

_Farbauti was fine (and the fringe tip was a good one), Angrboda (a lawyer and Farbauti's friend back from college) was present, Loki was great, the instructor sounded like an idiot, and the yoga was vaguely irritating yet sort of not an issue? Maybe it was the view._

_~_

_It was the first of May, it was the worst of May. Partly because the mouth Thor was passing grapes to was not that of his ungenerous ingenue, but Farbauti. (But mostly because he was at a regatta—it was his first in his life, as well as the last he would attend willingly.)_

_He and Farbauti were lounging on a picnic blanket on the grassy field some distance from the shore, where the majority of the onlookers were gathered; these people were mostly Farbauti's network, and they had gotten much of the socializing done before the main event began. Loki was still mingling wherever his fancy took him, primarily with others his age but he also seemed to be moving from one family or cluster to the next, making them laugh and receiving praise before drifting on again._

_Thor kept stealing the binoculars to check up on Loki, either because he was excellent stepfather material or because he needed another glimpse of Loki in those nautical knee socks and that scarf made entirely of black mesh which Thor had originally mistaken for God-Knew-What but now desperately needed to bind around Loki's wrists._

_“He's fine. These are good people,” Farbauti said._

_“You are right where I can protect you,” Thor countered. “Loki isn't. You can never be too careful.”_

_The binoculars gave him a glimpse of those silly, nautical knee socks again. “Shit,” he swore under his breath. He suddenly wanted to buy a boat._

_Thor had been working very hard on Farbauti in the short while they had been dating. Despite their best intentions, people believed what they wanted to: that a startlingly handsome and available man was infatuated with their fading, wrinkled selves at just the perfect time when they were adrift. Farbauti thought he wanted to get married even more than she did. Thor had just gifted her a necklace as a spontaneous gift (reward) for letting him take a little more of the reins out of her hands regarding her son._

_“How should we do it?” she asked, running a hand over her worried face. The action momentarily smoothed away the fine lines around her eyes._

_“I need to spend quality time with him one-on-one,” he declared with a tone of unflappable authority. “Activities between the three of us should be limited until Loki's ready; they're too much pressure for him right now.”_

_“Too much pre—how?”_

_“The best way is to make one change at a time: first I'm around a lot, then I'm his friend, and then we're a family.”_

_She didn't reply. She worried her bottom lip._

_“Loki's been waiting too long for an attentive father. This is the best way, Farbauti. This is important to me.”_

_She released a long sigh. “It always sounds so certain when you say it.”_

_“That's because I am.” He entwined his fingers with hers. “You can just never be too careful.”_

_When he saw Loki heading towards them sans friends, Thor swapped the binoculars for his phone for the fourth time since they'd arrived. Then he drank the glass of white wine Farbauti had abandoned while enjoying Loki's long, slow walk back to their blanket._

_“How is it, Loki? Has your fanbase grown?” Farbauti asked, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked up at him._

_“It's fun. Helblindi and Lorelei want to go on Helblindi's yacht,” Loki informed her, not asking for permission. Farbauti and Loki shared a smile Thor didn't quite get._

_“Well,” Farbauti said, evidently amused by something, “give Amora my best.”_

_“That's a new necklace,” Loki stated. “It does that thing with your eyes.”_

_Their eyes were the same shade of green._

_Farbauti shrugged._

_“Well, I'm going to visit with the Múspellsmegir. I haven't gotten to yet.” She stood up, checked her clothes for dirt and grass, and removed her necklace. She put it back in the box and winked at Thor. “Guard my treasures for me.”_

_Thor and Loki watched her leave. When she began hugging the people Thor assumed were the Múspellsmegir, he turned back to Loki. He lightly clasped a hand around Loki's ankle._

_“Hey, cutie. Keeping that scarf warm,” Thor said._

_“Pervert.”_

_Thor smirked and tightened his hold on Loki's ankle. He'd make a cute cabin boy, constantly in need of manhandling and corporal punishment._

_“What's with Amora?”_

_Loki shrugged and simply said, “I'm a heartbreaker. Show me the necklace.”_

_Thor tossed the box up at him and he caught it._

_Loki glared at the strand of rocks in his hand: moss agate, emerald, and pearls on hand-knotted mulberry silk. The clasp was one of those delicate and complicated gold S-hooks concealed in a decorative lock, too dainty for Thor's fingers to manage, but that was not why Loki's petulant lip was curled._

_“I_ am _dating her now,” Thor reminded him when the silence had lasted too long. He pressed a kiss to the knee of his peach, fully intent on making nice; Loki had only just started letting Thor touch him beneath his clothes._

_“If it's any consolation, I'm not dating her for her looks.”_

_The look Loki gave him was not what he wanted._

_“You know she's not the prize.”_

_And neither was that one._

_“What's wrong?”_

_“You're talking shit about my mom.”_

_Thor frowned in confusion. “You were pissed before that. What's the matter?”_

_Keeping hold of the necklace, Loki crossed his arms and cocked his hip._

_Thor's grip on his ankle tightened. If they were alone, he'd tip Loki flat on his ass and—but he had to be nice to get this one. Thor changed the subject._

_“Daddy wants to have some special 'bonding' time with you tonight,” he said, adopting a tone close to the one that made Loki gush on Farbauti's couch as he stroked Loki's ankle. “Just the two of us. We could go see a movie. Maybe Daddy will get you some rocks of your own.”_

_Loki looked like he was thinking about it. “The Palisades Mall?”_

_Thor rolled his eyes, unsurprised. “Maybe...”_

_“They have an indoor carousel and laser tag!” Loki was almost hopping._

_“All right, we'll go.”_

_“AND you apologize for talking about my mom that way.”_

_Jesus. Fucking sensitive little prick..._

_``_

_“Come onnnn,” Loki whined. “Just do it.”_

_“No. You can sit in my lap if you want it that badly.”_

_“Since when am I that dumb?”_

_Thor instinctively did not budge in the face of force, but Loki’s eyes had a telling glitter and he was clearly truly just Pleading for him to show off. So…_

_Thor growled and finally grabbed the immovable armrest separating their seats in the movie theater: he wrenched it—out of the socket, breaking it, and threw it on the floor beyond Loki's feet._

_They were early for the movie and there was only one other person in the theater, seated in the front and thus opposite them in the very last row, so Thor wasn't co—oh, lap full of Cute Boy!_

_The lips suddenly attached to his were unexpected, but Thor was up to the task. His hands settled firmly on Loki's thighs and he happily began kissing him with open hunger. Loki released a particular sound from deep in his throat when Thor—Thor didn't know what he'd done—but it was high and soft, the sort of sound one made when giving in to something one hadn't known would be as good as it was. Thor liked that sound; he cupped the back of Loki's head with one hand to keep him close._

_“That was hot,” Loki murmured between kisses. He wasn't kidding; he was grinding his hips against Thor's and feeling up his arms, no doubt picturing in his head what they'd looked like in the second it took Thor to break something that had been bolted to the floor. Thor groaned in what was a mixture of a reply and an involuntary response to Loki nibbling on his bottom lip._

_Loki pulled back when the previews started and he looked over his shoulder at the screen. A few more people were now seated throughout the theater. Thor didn't care; when Loki turned back to him again, his mouth was open as though he'd been about to speak, but Thor was already pressing his tongue back inside him._

_He let Loki go the third time he felt the hand pushing against his chest._

_“I changed my mind; I am hungry. Can you get us popcorn and candy please?”_

_Thor glared at him. Everyone out there would be able to see his dick._

_And then a smile of Selfless Benevolence spread across his face as he realized: everyone out there—would be able to see his dick._

_“What kind of candy do you want?” he asked, replacing Loki in his own seat so his erection had a greater chance of giving up the good fight._

_“Sour Patch Kids or strawberry laces please? And popcorn. And a Pepsi.”_

_Thor came back a few minutes later with all of those things and Loki's response at least took the edge off of Thor's irritation, although not anything else presently pent up him. The previews ended and the movie began and Thor was “good” for a while, alternating between checking his phone and pretending to watch the movie while secretly immersed in a very different one in his mind's eye, until the vision of Loki reaching over and feeling up his junk in a public movie theater felt too real to be a fantasy. Thor opened his eyes to realize he was right._

_He saw that pale hand glowing in the semi-dark upon the bulge in his jeans, and then Thor was unzipping and pulling his cock out. He dragged Loki against him and set upon his lips as he began to stroke himself._

_“You want to help Daddy with this?” he growled lowly, holding his cock at the base so Loki could enjoy an unobstructed view of the Entire Thing he would one day soon have to fit inside him. He liked the way Loki's eyelids fluttered at the sight of it._

_“Be a good boy and get on your knees.”_

_“I could never do that, I'm too shy,” Loki lied playfully. “But I might eat some of Daddy's cum if you learn how to suck my neck just right. I'm very sensitive...”_

_It was an appealing incentive, and Thor's brain was already too useless to inform him that this was not a calculated risk but an asinine and potentially disastrous one. Thor leaned in and began kissing, nibbling, and sucking here and there on Loki's neck. He used the volume of Loki's cries to help him find the sweetest spots and pressure he liked, and once he had that down, he worked on the boy's neck in time with his stroking while imagining himself plunging into his untouched, virgin hole. He bet Loki had no clue what it would feel like, to be that full… He was groaning but Loki sounded Delicious; his strangled whimpers alone made Thor's cock throb, and the more he dragged out of his throat the faster his cock leaked._

_He watched as Loki pulled Farbauti's necklace out of his pocket. He wrapped it around his knuckles and lightly brushed the cool stones against Thor's balls, causing Thor to hiss at the sudden coolness. Then Loki gently wrapped the strand around his balls and pulled very lightly._

_Thor grunted, but he let him do it._

_“Your mother will be pissed if you break it or you can't get the cum off.”_

_“You'll just have to buy me one of my own so I can replace them,” Loki whispered in his ear._

_His cock twitched at the thought of Loki secretly keeping something that had been doused in his cum. It was even weirder that said object had belonged to his own mother, but Thor liked it. The mall had another store of the same chain where he'd purchased the necklace; he'd buy Loki another tonight._

_Thor sped up his stroking again and placed his mouth on Loki's neck once more, forcing his boy to stifle his squeals and moans while making his cock weep all over his hand. Loki was Sensitive; Thor was a fan of the way his little hands scrabbled over his chest as he teased his tender skin. Thor's groans and panting were getting louder as he got closer; his skin prickled—he was certain people must hear him rows away, they must have been getting looks in the dark theater. On the two occasions he looked away from his treasure to check, he was indeed the recipient of some shadowy, no doubt glaring heads pointed towards them—one of them even tried to use the light from their phone for a better look._

_Thor, with all the self-preservation of a martyr, merely turned back to his boy and tucked in once more._

_All he wanted was to be buried between that sweet thing's legs. His face first, so he could be surrounded by the sound and feel of Loki's self-control unraveling until he begged for it, then his cock as Loki swore and thanked god for every inch Thor stuffed into him. He'd cream himself three times before Thor was even finished with the first round._

_He jerked himself hard and fast to that fantasy, until he realized how close he was. He grabbed Loki's wrist and tried to pull him onto the floor so he could shoot into his mouth, but Loki wriggled out of his hold. Then it was too late: he muffled his shout in the meat of his arm and came, thick jets of cum pumped onto the bucket of popcorn Loki held up to shield himself._

_Thor slumped back against his chair, panting heavily and feeling good in spite of the disappointment of not feeding his boy his come._

_“The popcorn's ruined now,” he muttered as he wiped himself off with napkins and tucked himself away. Only a few patches of the top layer of popcorn in the large bucket were untainted; he tended to come like a geyser._

_He looked over just in time to catch Loki popping a cum-covered kernel into his mouth._

_Feeding Loki the rest of the spunky popcorn became Thor's new distraction._

_A week later, Thor would receive an email notification that the necklace had been returned to the store for a full refund, but the money was taken in cash._

_That twisty shit. It turned out Farbauti had already gifted that necklace to Loki._

_She didn't like emeralds._

_``_

_But when Thor got him back to Farbauti's house, Loki still wasn't happy._

_Farbauti had texted them both to say she would be a few more hours with “the girls”, but should be back by eleven, and only Thjazi greeted them at the door before returning to his office. So Thor and Loki went upstairs to Loki's room, where Loki flopped onto his desk chair, already drooping. Thor took the bed and stretched out, checking that his phone still worked as he waited for Loki to spit it out._

_“I miss my father,” Loki admitted eventually—apparently to the desk for how far into it he was staring._

_“Look at me when you're talking to me,” Thor instructed flatly._

_Loki spun in his chair and stared at him. “I don't need you to emulate my mom, but you don't have to be more of an asshole right now.”_

_“I see you from here; you are confessing to your desk, not talking to me.”_

_“I'm looking at you now!”_

_“Are you?”_

_“I MISS MY DAD AND I'M LOOKING AT YOU!”_

_That made Thor smirk finally, and he put down his phone. He said, in a less grating tone of voice, “I thought you told me you hated your dad. Where's this coming from?”_

_Loki glanced down at his hands. He began tearing at a hangnail._

_“I don't miss Laufey… Mom…told me about when he used to spend time with me. Willingly. He initiated, he wanted to—it happened less the older I got.”_

_There Loki paused. Thor's brows furrowed._

_“And?”_

_“I don't remember any of it; she just told me about it. Like, when I was a toddler or something, my father would play with me and read to me every night. No one had to ask, he just did it. Until work got busier and I guess he had better things to do…” He sniffed. “I still have all those books in the basement.”_

_Thor chose the reply of silence; Loki’s “feelings” might just peter out on their own if Thor just behaved patiently for a while._

_“When I started school, he'd ask me about what I liked learning and if I'd finished my homework. He used to smile when he saw me.”_

_Loki was no longer looking at him, he was slumping back against his chair._

_Thor's Good Behavior was spent for the night._

_“Don't cry,” Thor jeered. “Be a man.” That usually shut them right up._

_But Loki did Not shut up, he Exploded. He began shrieking, berating him trying that shit with him and ordering him to never say anything like that to him again, all with a constant level of intensity that made even Thor blink._

_“The only men I know are men like my father and men like you!” Loki yelled with finality and began panting, having screamed all the breath out of his lungs._

_In the tense silence that followed, Loki gaped at him and he looked stoically back._

_Then Thor threw the box of tissues on the nightstand at him, and left the room._

_He returned perhaps fifteen minutes later, at which time Loki was still in his desk chair, hugging his knees and crying into them._

_“You're still here?” Loki asked, looking up at the armful of books Thor was carrying. He wiped his cheeks on the back of his arm. “What are you doing?”_

_Thor fanned the books out on the bed and pulled Loki to his feet._

_“Choose,” he said as he pushed him towards the bed._

_“Some of these are YA books,” Loki said, pulling out a thicker book with a bright, whimsical cover. “Did you even know what you were looking for?”_

_Thor waited silently, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest._

_Loki grabbed up about ten books and turned towards his bookcase with them, evidently Not Getting It, so Thor grabbed his arm. Thor moved the other books off the bed, sat down with his back against the headboard, and pulled Loki over to him. Loki gave him an uncertain look before handing him a red hardcover book, dumped the others, then grabbed his stuffed otter and scrambled onto the mattress._

_Thor pulled him unceremoniously onto his lap and opened the book to the first page._

_“Once there lived—”_

_“You have to say the title first.”_

_“You know what the title is, you chose it.”_

_“But you have to start with the title.”_

_Thor sighed and flipped it over so he could read the front cover._

_“Bergthor the Troll of Blafell. Once there lived—”_

_“Say it with resonance!”_

_That day, Thor learned that he was really bad at reading aloud. But over the course of the five subsequent book readings that same evening, he apparently improved although he still really needed to Practice more, feedback coming from the head that remained nestled against his chest the entire time._

~

Thor jerks when he feels a sudden lurch, but the surprise is soon smothered as the sleepy haze of alcohol settles over him again. He doesn't want to move, or wake up—he just wants to sink even deeper into this soft leather chair.

“Daddy. Wake up.” 

Thor is jostled again and he grunts, vaguely swatting in the direction of the voice.

“I want to talk to you about tomorrow night. I really don't want to go back to Mom's house.” He shakes Thor again.

“This is important to me.”

Loki's voice sounds like it's moving farther away, but when Thor finally forces his eyes open, Loki is still kneeling right beside him on the broad leather recliner in the library. Thor blinks a few times before the fuzzy outline of his world sharpens. There are a couple small plates and the remains of various tapas on the coffee table, two tumblers and water marks on the side table to Thor's right, and a sad look on his boy's face.

He opens his mouth and starts coughing; his mouth feels full of dry fuzz.

“...I feel alone, Daddy.”

This makes Thor laugh, because wasn't his dick just inside him a few minutes ago? He gropes for Loki's bum to see if his cum is still leaking out of him.

“Ow! Watch it, Thor! You're drunk.”

“You know how many _takes_ it drinks to get a man my size drunk?” 

Loki doesn't seem to find any of this as funny as Thor does. Sourpuss. 

“Baby, tell you what: I'll let you fuck me. That'll cheer you up. You're bright, you can't be...can't have forgotten how since last time.”

Thor's eyes slide shut again as the tide of sedation rolls back over him. He is vaguely aware of his briefs being pulled down and his boy's warm body settling between his legs. Then it stops.

“Daddy…you're not even here.”

~

_“Oh, SWEEPING,” Loki lamented with a dramatic sigh: “A two-handed man's game.”_

_Thor, sitting on the armchair and reading the New York Times in Farbauti's family room, smirked; Farbauti, pretending to read a home decorating magazine on the couch, twitched._

_“Do you know what else is a two-handed man's game?” Loki despaired loudly, waving his arms—one in a cast, the other fine—in the air. “Brushing all sides of your hair.”_

_It required Some Effort for Thor not to laugh. There was no way that magazine was putting that furrow between his fiance's carefully shaped brows._

_“You know what else is a two-handed man's game?_ Opening cans. _Baseball. Pick-up-sticks.”_

_Thor put aside his newspaper to watch the show._

_“Staff combat. Pottery. Bicycling.”_

_“You haven't ridden a bicycle in years,” Farbauti said._

_“Horseback riding.”_

_“You haven't touched a horse in a decade,” she countered (falsely). “You hated how mounting them put your hat 'askew'.”_

_“Cornrows.”_

_“Cornrows…?” she asked, her expression growing rather tight as she turned the page of her magazine._

_“Archery. Some sex positions. I can never become a French masseur.”_

_Farbauti looked like she wanted to lock herself into a nunnery._

_“Or a French maid.”_

_Thor was shaking with the effort to keep quiet._

_“Welding. Defending oneself against fan girls, men, honeybadgers, bad men. Batman.”_

_Farbauti bit the hook._ “Why Batman?”

_“You try telling me the man doesn't have some sordid kinks tied up in that nocturnal vigilante power fantasy of his. I look like I've never seen the sun, I can move in the dark so well we might as well tell the FBI I can echolocate, and I'm supremely cute. It's only a matter of time before he abducts me to fulfill his perverted sexual needs.”_

_Farbauti was now just sitting there with her eyes squeezed shut._

_“I might spend the rest of my days playing thrall to a wealthy, paranoid bat impersonator. Taking his calls. Molting. Hunting wild fruit. Laying eggs in dark corners. Do you think he always takes his mates while hanging from the ceiling?”_

_Thor bent over and put his face in his hands as the peal of laughter he’d been grappling into submission finally tore out of him._

_Loki flopped pathetically onto the couch beside his mother and began flail-oozing onto her lap. “Do you know what is the most disenfranchising of all?” he asked her, his expression pure and earnest. “Laced shoes. Button-down shirts. Cufflinks.”_

_“You can take off the cast!” Farbauti cried. She turned to Thor with a glare. “And you stop encouraging him!”_

_“He needs it for another two weeks,” Thor corrected her._

_“Ten days,” Loki corrected him._

_Farbauti's eyes slowly closed, the crease between her brows turning into a great rut. “Ten more days of this...” she groaned to Thor. “You know he's going to be like this at the wedding.”_

_Loki propped himself up on his good elbow and looked directly at Thor. He said, very seriously, “You know, I'm going to be like this at the wedding.”_

_Thor guffawed. He certainly hoped so!_

_“We can't switch his seat, and anyway I trust him even less at someone else's table.”_

_“First world problems,” Thor almost sang._

_“Would you act like a stupid man and just solve the problem?! I'm not venting for the love of it! We already told the Rosens we would come. What are we going to do with him, Thor?”_

_“Yes, let us keep speaking of my exalted personage as though I'm not here!” Loki cried, raising the arm in the cast and resting it against his mother's cheek. She was glaring so intently at Thor she didn't seem to notice._

_Still laughing, Thor tied his hair into a fresh ponytail, and then shrugged. “Loki's not going.”_

_“Not going?” Farbauti demanded. “We bought his plane ticket! To Bermuda!”_

_“Ahh, ye may never return,” Loki murmured dreamily from her lap._

_“YOU STOP IT!” Farbauti yelled down at him. She had never gotten over her fear of flying. “He IS going!”_

_“Neither of us is going,” Thor declared and picked up his newspaper again. “Invite your Russian lesbians. Crotchka the Nesting Doll and her fiance.”_

_Farbauti stormed out of the room without another word. Now Loki and Thor were both laughing, but only Loki was sliding onto the floor._

_``_

_The day before Farbauti was to leave for Bermuda, she wanted to spend some quality time with Loki after school, but Loki had taken it upon himself to refuse to go with his driver and stay late at his fencing class. Farbauti's divorce was approaching completion and Laufey had moved out by then, and no amount of texts or calls could get Loki to budge, so Farbauti had asked Thor to handle it in person for her. Between not giving a fuck, having extra work on his plate too, and trying to score more points with Farbauti, he agreed but he was not happy about it._

_He stomped into the building where Loki's fencing classes were held and made for the glass doors to the room where he saw fencers practicing, but one of the teachers coming out of the bathroom planted himself in between Thor and the entrance._

_“Are you here to pick up your kid? No one's allowed in the fencing room unless they are properly equipped.”_

_“I just need to get Loki and we'll be gone. I'll be one second.”_

_“No one is allowed in unless they're wearing the appropriate guards. You can give me the name of your kid and I'll tell him to come out.”_

_“He refused to leave. Relax, I'll be in and out.”_

_“You need to suit up.”_

_“You're kidding.”_

_He wasn't._

_Thirty minutes later (it took a while to gear that fit Thor's upper body), an even angrier Thor stomped into the fencing classroom in full white fencing gear and towards the bright, flushed face of his future stepson. Loki held his helmet under his arm and was smiling cutely as one of the instructors demonstrated something to Loki and two other students. When Loki saw him, he looked horrified._

_“You're coming home right now!” Thor snarled as he marched over to him._

_Loki started retreating towards the back wall, yelling, “He's a bad man! I can't go with him! Don't let him take me!!!”_

_“Your mom wants you home. We're going the fuck home.”_

_Loki whipped Thor's side with his rapier. With a snarl, Thor yanked the rapier out of his hand and grabbed him._

_“He's a bad maaaaaaaaaan!”_

“ARE YOU HONESTLY _BITING_ ME RIGHT NOW?”

_Thor threw him over his shoulder, where Loki wriggled and whined and kicked. “He's not my daddyyyy!!!”_

_“OH MY GOD, LOKI, HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO DO THIS IN PUBLIC?”_

_Then Loki chirped happily to the class: “He's gonna stick his sword up my butt!”_

_They just stared._

_Thor's countenance of scarcely controlled rage held until they'd both gotten into his car, at which point Thor burst into laughter, and then laughed until he cried, while Loki giggled and bounced happily beside him._

_Once he finally calmed down, he checked that his phone was still working and then smiled at Loki. “You don't have your license yet, right? Want to learn to drive?”_

_Loki scrambled onto Thor's lap and Thor adjusted the seat position to accommodate them both comfortably. He not-at-all-subtly shifted Loki's bum into the ideal position for “Daddy” and wrapped his arms around his boy's hips._

_“You take the steering wheel, I've got the pedals. We're going to slowly turn right out of the parking lot here.”_

_The car started moving towards the exit of the parking lot and the quiet street off it, Thor giving the directions._

_Thor pushed the break before they passed the sidewalk. “Now, Loki, if you hit that woman with the baby carriage, that's vehicular manslaughter of_ two _people. Would not recommend.”_

_“But I'm an overachiever!!!” Loki whined._

_“Quality over quantity, baby; get really good at running over singles, then we'll talk about duos.”_

_“Your car's steering is really sensitive...”_

_“You'll find that a lot with luxury cars. Use smaller turns. You'll get used to it. Now it's clear; after I push the gas again, you wait until the edge of the sidewalk is parallel your side view mirror before you turn, are we clear?”_

_“Yup...”_

_“'He's gonna stick his sword up my butt,'” Thor repeated with a long, deep chuckle._

_Loki wiggled happily and beamed over his shoulder at Thor before returning his attention to turning into the lane._

It was really too bad he wasn't cute. 

_``_

_By the time Thor got him home, Thor's mood had soured at the now all-too-real prospect of returning to work. He plopped Loki onto a kitchen chair in front of his school binder full of homework._

_“Finish your homework. Farbauti's leaving tomorrow and she wants to spend time with you tonight.”_

_Loki looked forlornly at the binder in front of him. “Can I have a snack?”_

_“Why not,” Thor said as he filled a glass of water for himself at the sink. When Loki kept looking at him, he frowned. “What?”_

_From all the way over at the kitchen table, Loki leaned meaningfully towards him. “Can-you-make-it-for-me?”_

_“Are you five?”_

_“Mebbe,” Loki said. “I want attention.” His hopeful grin rounded his rosy cheeks._

_Thor leaned against the counter, massaging his forehead. “And I want to break something… Do your homework. I have a lot to do for work right now and I'm not looking forward to going back to Manhattan.”_

_“Then do it here!” Loki chirped._

_“I can't do that.”_

_“Why can't you? You have a laptop specifically for work. It's portable.”_

_...Why couldn't he do it here? He'd brought it in his suitcase when he came to get Loki. It would save him from being on the train four times in one day._

_“Getting work done” turned into letting Loki crawl onto his lap and helping him revise his essay for his Honors World History class._

_“No, your argument is bad here; you have to sell me on it. Write it with authority, like…”_

_Loki cringed at each blunt issue but persisted in making the revisions. He insisted the lap-sitting was helpful to his “process,” as though Thor would have objected otherwise—his mood was too shitty for him to feel horny at that moment, but there was nothing irritating about Cute Boy Butt._

_“This just reads as wobbly. Was smallpox awful or not? You just told me about it in the car. It sounds like hell, so it is. Say that.”_

_“I can't write 'it was like hell'...”_

_“It might get a rise out of Ms. Idunn.”_

_“I don't want to have to rewrite this a second time!”_

_“Then don't. Do it better this time.”_

_“I'm tiiired. I don't want to do this...”_

_“How is this hard for you? Farbauti was just gushing to me about how you did three optional projects on top of your required one for this class even though you couldn't get extra credit on more than one of them.”_

_“Those topics were interesting. I like Japan. This is boring.”_

_“How is the suffering and deaths of millions boring? Think of the economic cost alone.”_

_“There are eight whole pages left...”_

_“You just finished six. You did well. Now do it again.”_

_After the essay was finished, he pushed Loki off his lap so he could get some of his own work done while Loki reviewed his Latin. Loki cheered up considerably when Thor said he'd help him with his Economics homework, but Thor didn't know how that came as a surprise. They had to take a five minute break for Loki to get his stuffed otter (Mr. Herbert), and then he was back in Thor's lap again._

_“Will you come over and read to me while Mom's away?” Loki asked._

_“Loki, she asked me to stay with you in the evenings. You were right there.”_

_“I know, but… Will you read to me?”_

_“Most likely.”_

_So Thor guessed this was what they called “Daddy Issues”._

_``_

_“...assembled to weld stars together to form many mirrors and much jewelry, and went to the cavern where the Sun Goddess still hid in shame of her brother. Under the Sakaki Tree, the Gods created a glittering and loud spectacle with their creations and music, and Uzume danced wildly on an upside-down tub with her bare breasts jiggling and flapping about. The laughter and noise at last drew Amaterasu out of her hiding place, her humiliation forgotten, and she gave the world daylight again.”_

_Thor put the book down. That was the third one tonight. Loki's reward after finishing his homework._

_“How was that one?” he asked the head resting against his chest._

_Loki looked up at him and beamed. “A-! You've gotten a lot better!”_

_“Mm. How about Daddy gets some extra credit?” he murmured._

_Loki turned around and craned up to kiss him properly and Thor wrapped his arms around him._

_What Thor liked best about kissing him was the little, stunned-sounding moan Loki gave up on the first kiss; it was too soon to be expected, the sound was such that it had to be involuntary, but Thor got it out of him at the start. It stayed with Thor as their mouths found their rhythm and their kisses grew louder and open and wanting._

_Thor's hands wandered over ribs and side and stomach, up the curve of his spine and into the little tufts of hair on the nape of Loki's neck just below where the proper hairline began. He squeezed anytime he had the urge to feel Loki trapped in his hands; he grasped his shoulders, gripped his waist, and groped his ass. Then his hands ran back up Loki's sides and down his arms; he wanted to touch his elbows, he wanted to feel his wrists._

_He gently bit Loki's lower lip because he wanted to close in around even a little piece of him, and he bit again harder when Loki whined. He gathered the long, black hair between his thumb and forefinger and pulled, but where Loki's mouth went, he followed. Loki's hands drew up beside Thor's neck, squeezed the collar of his shirt as he tilted his head one way for a few kisses, then the other because that seemed even better for more, and then back again as though the first way had really been his favorite. The tighter Thor gripped him, the harder Loki pushed himself forward. He pressed his tongue deep into Thor's mouth and then drew Thor's into his. He tugged on Thor's collar and pushed forward until Thor's head was against the headboard._

_Loki knee-walked closer, until his thighs were split over Thor's groin like that was what he wanted, that was the place he needed to be the same way Thor needed him there. Thor groaned into his mouth and gripped his thighs in his hands. He pushed down on Loki's hips like he would if Loki was riding his cock, imagining that little ring of muscle was finally stretched wide around his dick. Then his hands rose back up, one to the small of Loki's back and the other to his chin because he hadn't grasped them yet and he wanted those too. He breathed in Loki's moans, wanting what they meant and the sounds themselves; he wanted the dips in his collarbones and the thin muscles straining in his neck; he wanted the vibrations he felt there when he made Loki whimper; he wanted to keep him whimpering like that at the top of his white throat._

_Thor pulled their hips flush and rocked against him. He pulled back from Loki's mouth and moaned when he saw the blushing cheeks, the gaping mouth, the helpless look on his boy's face._

_“You want it bad, baby,” he murmured and began to undo his belt. Loki watched his hands move, biting his swollen bottom lip when the thick head bobbed free. Loki's nostrils flared as the scent of the pre-cum dribbling from the tip hit him._

_Thor nuzzled the side of Loki's neck. “Do you want it?” Thor whispered without realizing it._

_Loki looked down at his cock, one hand poised to grasp it; and he did, his fingers not meeting around the girth but giving two long strokes to it before he began to cry._

_“I—I—I juh—I—”_

_Loki gave up and covered his face with his hands._

_Thor slowly put himself away, hissing as his waistband cinched around the underside of it beneath the head. He took deep breaths through his nose, rested his forearms on Loki's thighs, and let him sit there. Eventually his cock softened and Loki spoke again, after Thor had spent minutes staring at the backs of his hands._

_“I'm sorry,” Loki squeaked, still hiding behind his hands._

_Thor tilted his head to the side._

_“I'm sorry I couldn't do it,” Loki repeated._

_Thor picked up Mr. Herbert and pressed him against Loki's wrist until he took it. Loki held Mr. Herbert against his chest with one hand and the eye he'd exposed glanced nervously up at Thor._

_“Are you angry with me?” Loki asked._

_“No, I'm just annoyed,” he answered._

_Loki seemed to be holding his breath—until (perhaps) he realized Thor wasn't going to add anything else._

_“You...you haven't gotten what you wanted,” Loki muttered, fidgeting._

_“I didn't know you could feel guilt,” Thor quipped. “That's good to know.”_

_Loki fussed with the hem of his shirt._

_“...One of the first times we were alone together, you pinned me to the couch.”_

_“Yes, I did that. I haven't done it again since then,” Thor reminded him._

_“Right, you haven't done it again… So why are you…”_

_“What,” he prompted._

_“You're still doing a lot of stuff for me… It_ has _to be a problem.”_

_“Your point. Now.”_

_“Why are you still doing this? What do you want?”_

_Thor just looked at him._

_“I want to fuck you,” he said._

_Loki visibly deflated._

_“In the ass,” Thor added, to be a dick._

_Loki sighed, eyes wide in exasperation as he began to turn away. “Forget it.”_

_Thor stopped him._

_“I do it because I want to fuck you, and because I want you to have the things you want.”_

_Loki's face changed—maybe he understood?—but then he wrinkled his nose. “That's not how I've heard anyone else explain it...”_

_Thor grabbed his chin and turned his face to the mirror on the wall._

_“You see that? You see that child sitting on that man's lap?_ Did you forget something?” _It began as a normal question, but by the end his voice was loud with anger and demand, almost shouting, without realizing it._

_Loki blinked at their reflection, then nodded when Thor took his hand away. “You aren't other people… It's been three months. We haven't gone past oral.”_

_“I noticed,” Thor said dryly._

_“You want it—you just had—” Loki placed a hand on Thor's crotch._

_Thor grabbed his wrist in a steely grip and held it away from his groin. It was so easy to hold him down (and other things)._

_“Are you deliberately teasing me?” Thor demanded._

_“No! I just don't understand—it has to be a problem.”_

_“I know how long it's been,” Thor clarified, “and I don't mind.” He released Loki's wrist._

_“...I don't know what that means,” Loki murmured._

_Thor tilted his chin up to make him meet his eyes again. “I don't care if my mother gets the things she wants,” he said, “but I don't mind you.”_

_Loki looked at him for a long moment._

_“You still like me?” Loki asked._

_“Have I hit my head in the past five minutes?”_

_Loki smiled a little. Thor settled his hands on Loki's hips._

_“I want you the way you were when we were kissing: coming to pieces,” Thor told him. “That's what I'm going to take, nothing less. If you're not feeling that way, then I don't want it.”_

_Loki hugged Mr. Herbert with both hands then. “Okay,” he said softly._

_“Alright. I want sushi for dinner. What about you?”_

_“Mom said not to order out.”_

_Thor laughed. “What, do you roll dice to decide when you're going to obey her? How the fuck's she gonna know? We're getting sushi. The only thing you need to do is tell me where Farbauti keeps the take-out menus...”_

_He got off the bed and carried Loki and Mr. Herbert downstairs._

_``_

_A few hours later after dinner, they were lying together on Farbauti's master bed. They made out until it eventually became apparent to even Thor's lust-addled brain that all the clothed dry humping in the world was nevertheless an impasse, and they went back to watching TV over the tents in their pants since Loki declined to let Thor's dick out even for his own hand._

_Tonight Thor was feeling mellow enough to be untroubled by it. He felt a bit better in general when he was around Loki—when he actually had the little shit in his hands and under some semblance of control, that is. And the laughter helped. Maybe Dr. Eir was wrong and he wouldn't wind up needing blood pressure medication at all._

_Now they were watching American Dad; Thor found the show funny, but Loki thought it was hilarious._

_Thor identified mostly (read: only) with Roger the alien, both for the facts that he was unalterably separate from the sentient creatures around him and because the only thing he had to understand about Roger was that he had no complicated relationships or reasons: he wanted and did and didn't actually care about those around him._

_In an episode where Roger showed at substantial cost to himself that he did in fact care, far beneath his perpetual inebriation and self-absorption, Thor was left with a vague feeling of unease. It was supposed to be a light, funny show..._

_During a commercial break, Loki rolled onto his stomach and rested his chin on Thor's chest. Thor looked at him._

_“That's bad for your back,” Thor said._

_“You smile a lot,” Loki commented, as though he'd suddenly realized this._

_Thor snorted. “No.”_

_Loki raised his eyebrows. “What, I can't notice things?”_

_Thor grinned and shook his head, chuckling. “No, because I don't smile much.”_

_“You smile a lot around me.”_

_“You're hot and you make me laugh.”_

_Loki shrugged. Thor tucked a stray strand of hair behind Loki's ear, gathered the length of the rest in his hand, and pulled a little. Loki let him._

_“What were your parents like?”_

_Thor's teeth clicked shut behind his lips but he didn't release Loki's hair._

_“Typical small-town Midwestern. Uninteresting. No, I wasn't abused.”_

_Loki's eyebrows rose high on his forehead._

_“Yes, I still turned out wrong.”_

_Loki blinked. “Defensive much?”_

_“I'm not defensive,” Thor said, then abruptly scowled._

_“You must have stood out somewhere to move this far away, go to college, get your MBA, and wind up the Chief Financial Manager for one of the top twenty Fortune 100 companies. And never return home...”_

_“You don't know whether I visit my family or not.”_

_Loki smiled at him. “Someone like you doesn't visit his family. Do they know?”_

_Frigga might have. “No.”_

_“Do you miss them?”_

_What did that mean? “I send them money on family holidays.”_

_“Do you have siblings?”_

_“Where's the button I have to press to make it stop?” Thor asked, leaning close and inhaling the scent of Loki's hair._

_“I think that's a covert 'yes'! A brother?”_

_Thor kissed him to shut him up. It was not an unpleasant strategy._

_Loki's lips opened for him and Thor's tongue delved into him. He rolled over on top of his boy, supporting his upper body weight on his forearms, and took his warm, soft mouth. Loki seemed to melt beneath him, and his white fingers rose up into Thor's hair._

_``_

_Thor vaguely remembered Farbauti saying Loki needed to go to bed at a reasonable hour, so eventually Thor carted his boy off to bed, although Thor had no investment in the notion that putting Loki physically in bed had any relationship with when he would go to sleep._

_He wasn't planning on staying the night, but while Loki was in the bathroom brushing his teeth and his hair, he asked Thor if he'd brushed his teeth today and Thor stupidly answered that he had not. So Loki handed him a spare tooth brush and...there they were, brushing their teeth “for bed” side by side before the bathroom mirror..._

_He directed Loki to bed with a hand on the back of Loki's neck, like he was transporting a criminal, and then he read to him._

_Thor became quiet and still for a moment after he closed “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J.D. Salinger. He and his boy were both beneath the sheets and Loki's head was pillowed on Thor's chest._

_Eventually, Loki said, “I liked how tender he was with her, even though—he was so—”_

_“All right. Go to sleep,” Thor said and began to shift himself out of Loki's bed._

_“Wait, are you leaving?” Loki cried._

_Thor turned and looked at him. He never pretended to understand this crap, but Loki had been upset far more often today than was normal for him._

_...Had he?_

_It occurred to him then to ask._

_“What made you cry earlier?”_

_Loki chewed his lip and looked away._

_“I don't want you to leave,” Loki murmured from the pillow. “I really don't want you to go.”_

_Thor sighed and waited for him to spit it out._

_“...I'm afraid if we do… Well, would you? Leave?”_

_“You want a daddy,” Thor said._

_Loki began picking at the bedspread._

_The thought didn't immediately rankle him. Loki was gorgeous and nabbing him had already turned into a semi-long haul deal._

_Thor didn't have any big plans._

_“Okay,” he said._

_Loki looked up at him, cringed, and began blinking rapidly. He turned away from Thor._

_“What?” Thor demanded. He grasped Loki's hip and lightly tugged, but Loki must have been clinging to the side of the bed. He yanked Loki back against him. “What's up? What do you want?”_

_Loki covered his face with his hands and spoke into them: “I want my daddy to hold me at night.”_

_Thor's eye twitched in irritation; Loki either wanted his cock in him or he didn't, and he needed to pick one._

_But then Loki laid a pale hand on his shoulder and looked up at him in a way that Thor had only ever received, from a real Person, no more than two times in his life._

_Thor took off his shirt and belt, draped them on the footboard, and lay back down under the sheets. He wrapped his arm around him and threw a leg over his side._

_Loki was now looking at him nervously, his gaze darting rapidly from one eye to the other. Thor stared steadily back, unblinking._

_“You want the light on?” Thor asked, gesturing to the bedside lamp._

_Loki didn't say anything._

_“Okay,” Thor said, and closed his eyes._

~

Thor's second waking on Saturday night (in the dark hours of Sunday morning) is slow and lazy. He needs to piss but he's not ready to move yet, so he rolls sluggishly one way and the other until the time when his bladder wins over his inertia and Thor slowly walks out the French doors to piss on the lawn.

When he comes back inside, he sees Loki in a chair and remembers he wanted to talk to him. Loki is awake and drooping in his armchair, yet conspicuously not on his phone. 

So...it's _important._

He is no longer belligerently drunk, so he slowly walks over to the armchair beside Loki's and sits. He thinks he roughly adopts the body language of someone who is willing and able to listen. But his unpreparedness for the conversation Loki needs to have becomes staggeringly apparent very shortly.

“We need to leave the country,” Loki says. “I won't go back to Farbauti. I _won't.”_

Thor blinks slowly (drunkenly), then winces (also slowly, and also drunkenly).

“Okay. So you've said that,” Thor replies in a gravelly voice.

"How can we do that? What needs to be done?”

Sure, ask him when he's drunk and also not a divorce attorney.

“I'll call Tony...we can talk to him, if that ass picks up.”

“Then call Tony,” Loki insists. “I want you to call Tony, I really do. This is important. Please.”

“Okay.”

“When?” Loki presses expectantly.

Ugh. Thor has to get himself a glass of water and splash water on his face before he can make himself sit down and call Tony. He sits back down on the armchair adjacent to Loki's and selects Tony's mobile number under his contact information. 

While the phone rings, snippets of Thor's previous attempts to pursue this topic with Tony meld together and replay in his mind.

_“It's a sexist system; courts place kids where the 'natural parent' is,” Stark had said._

_Then bribe the judge._

_“And the algorithm assigning judges to cases.”_

_Then bribe all the possible judges._

_“Farbauti has two aces: biological mother, and fit parent. Oh, and ovaries, probably; her last facelift was gorgeous.”_

_She has two nannies on rotation raising him._

_“Cruel and unusual.”_

_She's doing cocaine at the very least!_

_“And you aren't.”_

_How much do you fucking want?_

_**“Ovaries.** You aren't even Loki's biological father, who is still alive and not suing for custody.”_

_He already gave up his legal rights as father! And I can buy Loki's way into Princeton. I can buy Bali!_

_“Do you have an optometrist,” Stark replied, as tactfully as he ever was outside a courtroom._

Thor grunts and hits the speakerphone option.

The call is accepted. **“No,”** comes Tony's stern voice. “I'm on vacation, Thor. Pepper's in a bikini.”

“Loki needs you,” Thor says. “He's with me for the weekend and he doesn't want to go back to Farbauti's house tomorrow.”

“Loki doesn't want to go or you don't?” Tony asks in his usual tone of irritating sarcasm and arrogance. “There is _nothing_ I can do about your custody arrangement unless you have something hard for me to work with.”

“Hi, Tony,” Loki says. 

“Oh, you were serious.” Tony's voice changes. “How refreshing to hear your voice, Loki. What bubbles can I burst for you today?”

“Thor was right: I don't want to go back home anymore. I can't go back.”

“If you have hard evidence that Farbauti's an unfit guardian, then I can work with that, but it could take a few months.”

Loki pales suddenly. “Wh—I didn't know? How...”

“And I would not recommend violating your present custody arrangement. If Thor refuses to return you to Farbauti tomorrow, she can get the police to enforce her custody rights. If he has a history of violating her rights, it won't look good for Thor if and when we pursue a new custody arrangement.”

“Why does that matter? Can't you just—make it work anyway?”

“If Farbauti hadn't hired Agrboda, I could transmute base metals.”

“Would it hurt our chances even if he's not involved? Even if I just refuse to go home? On my own?”

“That will be even worse for Thor's chances of getting you full-time. If you disappear while in his house, he'll look negligent and unfit.”

“But why can't I just say _no?!_ I refuse to go back!”

“You can if you cite a serious danger in her house,” Tony explains. “Drugs, lack of food or shelter, threats of physical harm to you by her or Svadilfari, physical harm dealt to you by her or Svadilfari... If there's another adult she lets into her house who does any of that, it's still possible but it gets trickier to prove Farbauti's unfit.”

Loki doesn't reply. He starts biting his knuckle.

Thor, who had only been half-paying attention to the conversation, is suddenly drawn in with a surge of erratic anger. “What do you care about going back there?” he growls at Loki. “ _'Svad'_ is working so hard for your pussy!”

Loki gapes at him. “Stop it!” he cries.

“It's just what you _like,_ you little chit! WHY ARE YOU CRYING?!”

“Gentlemen, please...”

“You want to pretend you're better than everybody else? Then beat him!” Loki cries. “I could file that report on _you!_ ” 

“YOU'RE GETTING OLD!” Thor booms.

Loki opens and closes his mouth, twice, then rushes to the liquor cabinet and pulls out the first bottle in reach. It's amaretto and Thor is clearly noticing the important shit right now.

“Christ, it's illegal for me to even be hearing this conversation,” Tony snaps. “I didn't hear any of that. Loki, what you want is within the realm of possibility, but I need something _hard_ I can throw at your mother's fitness as a guardian that Angrboda can't possibly wriggle out of. I need hard evidence of abuse, rape, drugs, or murder. I might need testimony. Can you provide that against her?”

Loki finishes his glass and sets it down on the counter with a gasp. He pours himself another.

“Your alternative is a formal police report,” Tony continues. “That means you call 911 and you file that report against your mother. Child Protective Services would begin an investigation of Farbauti and _if and when_ they find evidence that her house is unsafe for you, you would be relocated to the home of your next legal guardian, Thor, for the duration of the investigation. The faster they find that evidence, the faster you'll be placed out of her house. How likely is it that they're going to find something, Loki?”

Glass in hand, Loki leans against the counter and starts shaking. “She's still my mom!” he cries wetly. “W-Why do you _need_ that? You're supposed to be...the best...”

“Thor pays me to be his and, by extension, your legal counsel. You have the best, _but so does Farbauti,_ and for Angrboda it's personal; they go all the way back to their college yoga elective and you know about bitches who sun salute together.” 

Loki starts crying over his glass. “I want my mom...”

 _“Loki!”_ Thor snaps.

“Thor, do me a favor and bring the phone to Loki. I'm going to talk to him alone.”

``

Close to an hour later, Loki emerges from the bathroom with Thor's phone in hand. In that time, Thor has transitioned from angry to befuddled to curious, mixed with a vague sense of discomfort that intensifies when he replays the last minutes of his conversation with Loki. He sits up in his armchair and watches Loki walk unsteadily back to the bar. Loki tosses the phone at him as he passes. Thor catches it.

“Thor,” Tony calls quietly—Loki must have taken it off speakerphone.

Thor holds the phone up to his ear. “What did he say?”

“I walked him through filing the police report: what to say, what to specify. He said he'll do it tomorrow.”

“What did Farbauti do?”

“Svadilfari,” Tony answers. “Before you leap to conclusions, I think he was just the easier of the two. CPS will move Loki into your residence if Farbauti refuses to kick Svadilfari out.”

Thor looks over at Loki; he is leaning heavily against the bar counter.

“Loki will probably change his mind a few times tomorrow, if he goes through with it at all. Thor, unless you've got some Shakespearian acting skills hidden up your sleeve, you tap out with Roskva for that part. Understand?”

“I…thought you only did divorce law,” Thor murmurs.

“You are correct. Pepper does sex crimes. She even does pro bono work, the saint.”

“Oh.” Thor looks at the French doors this time. He blinks owlishly. “Did Svadilfari hurt him?”

“It sounded like he was just the easier target to shoot,” Tony repeats. _“Try_ to be nice to him. Put a warm blanket on him, hold his hand, be around enough to keep him from feeling unwanted. Say nice things to him for no reason. Be the warmest, fuzziest version of yourself you can and he'll latch onto you instead of his Mama Yeti.”

Thor says nothing. He doesn't understand. 

“He's less likely to flip-flop if you can act like his fairy godmother while he's scared, _okay?”_

“I'll call you tomorrow,” Thor says.

“Let Roskva have him when he's upset,” Tony reminds him.

Thor ends the call. He looks at the phone in his hand for a minute, unthinking, then swipes through the pages and messes with a few apps to make sure the thing is still working. Then, with a feeling like pain in his stomach, he slides it into his pocket and looks at Loki.

Loki is now lying down, mostly on the bar counter, and there is another full glass of Amaretto in his hand.

“Daddy?” Loki calls in a quavering voice. “I'hm—I'm very— _sad._ 'M _serious_ ,” Loki adds in a tone of voice that sounds like anything but as he slowly pushes himself onto his feet. He drifts toward the armchair where this conversation began and where Thor now sits, waiting for him.

Loki stops just a foot away from him.

“Come here,” Thor orders quietly.

Loki does not come; he raises his glass to his mouth.

“Would you—stop!” Thor pulls the fresh drink from Loki's hand and pours it out into a potted plant. “You're past your limit.”

“But, I wanna—” Loki stops mid-sentence and just stands there, eyes shut and speechless, until Thor yanks him onto his lap. 

_“Shh!”_ Thor tucks him against his chest, but Loki murmurs unintelligibly as he squirms against him. 

“Shhh, it's okay, baby,” Thor says as he strokes his back. The low mumbles continue until Loki springs upright and stares him in the eye.

“This pocket watch was a family heirloom!” Loki cries. “My grandfather was in the war and he wore this watch on a chain around his neck, and he gave this watch to his father, and his father gave it to his father—”

Thor places his hand over Loki's mouth.

 _“Shhhhhhhh.”_ He hushes Loki and pulls him back down against his chest. “Did Roskva give you drugs? Go to sleep, baby.” Maybe it's the amaretto—Thor hates the stuff and people tell him he's a _Mean_ drunk when he's had it. What does that even mean? Whatever, he's throwing that shit out first thing tomorrow.

“Are you gonna read t'me?” Loki mumbles against Thor's collarbone.

“If you get up to bed without vomiting on Daddy, yes. Otherwise, we'll see.”

“But you _do_ have those switches in your ass, and you never know what they're _for_...”

``

Thor pulls the sheets aside and puts Loki in bed. He goes to the bathroom and drinks several glasses of water from the faucet, hoping to avoid a hangover tomorrow although it's a little late now. He returns to the side of Loki's bed and watches him cuddle his pillow and squirm as though he's trying to navigate through something less solid than the mattress beneath him. Dear god, he's never letting Loki have amaretto again.

He finishes his last cup of water and looks at the small collection of stuffed animals on the bed and windowsill. Mr. Herbert and the octopus both share the place of honor nestled against Loki's side beneath the sheets, but clustered on the wide window ledge are a tiger, a chameleon, a flamingo, a shark, and a... _clam?_

Thor picks it up and scowls when the plush clam “shell” opens to reveal two beady eyes staring coldly back at him from the depths of its mouth.

“Daddy?” Loki mumbles from the pillow.

Thor puts the clam back down on the window ledge, facing the window. 

He lies down in bed and pulls Loki against his chest. “I'm right here, baby,” he says, and leaves the lamp on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for the big finish. ;)
> 
>  
> 
> [”A Perfect Day for Bananafish”](http://vk.com/doc4621819_82945376) by J.D. Salinger is an excellent short story which I highly recommend. It's so evocative for being 11 pages long.
> 
> Same handle as on [Tumblr.](http://radiatorfromspace.tumblr.com/)


	5. Conscience and Consciousness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But you’re not my daddy, and I’m not your dolly, and your dictionary’s destroyed.  
> /  
> Sync your devices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheers,

“Daddy! ...Daddy! ...Daddy!”

It is almost noon on Sunday when Thor stands before the window in his study and stares out of it with a look of bewilderment on his face.

First he cracks a grin, and then a deep chuckle rolls out of him. He takes out his phone and jabs his thumb on the field for Romanov's work phone.

A few minutes later, she arrives by his side to stare out the window at the cute and airborne teenage boy bouncing in and out of view from the second floor of the house.

“Daddy! ...Daddy! …I love you! ...Daddy!”

“What is this?” Thor asks.

“...He asked for his trampoline,” she answers after a moment.

“He has a trampoline?”

“His birthday last year. I curated the gifts on your behalf.” She turns to him and holds out her hands.

“How big is this trampoline?” he demands as he looks down. In one hand, Romanov holds a glass of water, and in the other, a single white pill.

“Your blood pressure medication,” she reminds him.

“So how is he?” she asks, Calmly, while he swallows his dose. He'd say he pays her to be that way, but he can't imagine her ever having been any alternative.

“Roskva tried talking to him this morning. She says he's distracting himself from it.”

“I noticed.”

“But she thinks he'll do it, once he has to return to Farbauti’s.”

“When he can no longer avoid it,” she says. “He must be scared.”

Thor says nothing and they continue watching Loki bounce in and out of view. His cheeks are rosy and his impish grin is beguiling. Thor smiles back, absently.

“I was nice to him,” he adds abruptly. “This morning.”

“Despite the hangover?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Double points then,” she comments, without sarcasm.

“I love you! ...I LOVE you! ...My favorite...Daddy!”

“You will handle the police,” Thor instructs in a different tone of voice. “I will not be bothered by their questions, or Farbauti’s afterward. You stay with him the entire time. When they're gone, come and tell me what Loki wants.”

“Daddy! ...Daddy! ...Daddy!”

“And I need you to do something I can't ever know about, in her house. You know what.”

Thor places his hand on the cord to lower the blinds.

Then Loki begins undressing in mid-air as he bounces.

Thor laughs and takes his hand off the cord. He never stopped with the cute thing...

 

 

“Romanov.”

“Sir.”

“Never testify against me.”

“Stark can send me the terms of my compensation,” she offers, and departs his study.

~

“Just make sure the two of you are on the same page,” Tony says, sounding less irritable than last night on the phone. “If Loki makes that report, they're going to ask about you, too. Keep cool; it’s just routine. Good luck.”

Thor ends the call and puts his phone down on his desk and gazes at nothing in particular. Why did he say that? 

He shifts in his chair this way and that, folding his legs and then stretching them out and leaning back. He doesn't like this, whatever This is. His skin starts to itch in places that have no relationship to each other all over his body.

He scratches himself with one hand while walking over to the drink station and pouring himself a whiskey and immediately after a brandy, each from crystal decanter into a stout cut crystal tumbler although it strikes him just then how ludicrous it is to even own Waterford when every use of these dated vessels comes with a dose of lead. 

He drinks until it goes away, and then he returns to his desk.

He tries to focus on his copy of the Wall Street Journal and his notes. On his land line phone, he listens in on a conference call regarding the latest earnings report from General Electric and takes additional notes. Liquid warmth spreads through him and he enjoys the light, pleasant lull. The quarterly earnings turn to lead, then steel, then the unhelpful fleshy analogy that makes him think of his phone.

A need occurs in him and without a thought he mutes the call—he records these them anyway—and flicks on the side monitor displaying the feeds from the many cameras in and around the house. Their number has grown with his paranoia the past twelve months he has lived in this house. He needs to know that they are still working.

They are. The monitor glows, showing him at a cursory glance the twelve camera feeds he'd been worried about are indeed still functioning: of particular interest in this moment, each of the three bedrooms and adjoining bathrooms Loki had commandeered on his whim over the year he'd been visiting with Thor were on display.

They're all working, great. 

As abruptly as the itching question occurred, it departs; he doesn't care anymore.

Then Thor is prompted by some deeply entrenched internal clock to remove his phone from his pocket, and he stares at it with distinct interest, without turning on the home screen.

That all of Thor's electronic devices frequently and inexplicably break has been a trend since the first time his pubescent self slid his curious hand into the darkness below his waistband and curled around the waking Thing between his legs. 

He had never known anyone else with this problem and he saw no _external_ causal mechanism.

The body’s outermost layer of skin, the one you see, is actually dead; living skin cells continually produce this outer layer to maintain a protective, unfeeling barrier between itself and all the threats outside. The body is always shedding dead skin cells past their usefulness, many of them afterward becoming microscopic snowflakes dispersed throughout the person’s environment on air currents and the ventilation system.

Biological snowflakes, except they are all identifiably the same: _his_ —his DNA moving and settling on exoskeletons of plastic and metal housing technology, doing god-knows-what there until a maid wipes them away. 

They are supposed to be dead, but so are viruses—and he thinks there is something wrong with his, that something about him is retained and manifested on the cellular level; that even the defunct husks of his former cells possess the malign quality of surviving by invading other living bodies and conveying their error into these benign, unadulterated cells that are then transformed into factory extensions of the disease vector, and the creatures harboring them become changed, and ruined.

He imagines his skin cells do that to electronic devices.

Ha.

 

Thor removes the phone's protective case and places the phone on the floor, beneath his shoe.

``

But Thor pulls off before he can hear it crunch beneath his shoe. He leaves the thing on his bedside table and goes in search of his boy, something else hanging heavily in his pocket.

He walks to the door of Loki's second bedroom, aware of the garbled din of musical, teenage self-expression, that becomes clear only immediately outside the door: _Candy bear, sweetie pie, wanna be adored, I'm the girl you'd die for..._

He opens the door to _I'm gonna pop your bubblegum heart_ and closes it behind him. Paris is in the room too, probably shitting on everything, but he's high up on an out-of-the-way perch and the only thing Important now is right in front of him—dancing with his phone before his full-length mirror in half a shirt, French lace panties, and Dr. Martens. 

Thor remembers that lace; he smirks as he unbuttons his Egyptian cotton shirt and discards it on the floor, but he leans back against the door to enjoy the show. His balls feel heavy and full, even fuller now that he's watching this and knows what he wants to do to his boy. _Got a figure like a pin up, got a figure like a doll—Don't care if you think I'm dumb, I don't care at all!_

He fingers the plug in his pocket; Loki is in for it tonight.

Loki stretches and undulates to the music, his body tight and lithe and compelling to the eye. He alternates between dancing for his own pleasure and for his phone as he lip-syncs with the song: _Queentex, latex, I'm your Wonder Maid!_ That lace reveals about a nice mouthful of cheek, perfect for aiming a bite, and strains to hide his bits in front. All Daddy's.

He is probably taking photos of himself, _Oh dear diary, I met a boy!,_ perhaps some videos: all blushes, lean limbs, and evil grins for his secret audience. _He made my dull heart, light up with joy!_ Thor's cock stirs a little extra at the thought. They have done this too many times for Thor to believe Loki is unaware of his presence, but— _Oh dear diary, we fell apart! Welcome to the life of_ —Loki ignores him for now, waits for Thor's dick to drag him across the room to him. 

_I chew you up and! I'll spit you out! 'Cause that's what young love! is all about!_ —Drag it does; he watches the phone's camera monitor over Loki's shoulder, and when he gets into the frame, gets two satisfying handfuls of boy flesh, gets the smooth skin of his boy's back flush against his chest—Loki keeps taking photos. _So pull me closer! and kiss me hard! I'm gonna pop your bubblegum heart!_

In the winning photo, Loki looks debauched: his mouth is open, his cheeks flushed, his hair disheveled like he's already been fucked from both ends by the thick-armed, smirking Man wrapped around him in the frame. _I'm your sugar pink, liquor, liquor lips_ —He snaps this perfectly timed photo, crops everything below Thor's chin— _I'm gonna be your bubblegum bitch!_ —and attaches it to a text which he sends, directly, to his mother.

~

_After a whole day of meetings with Vili Ve and Jormungand, Thor was boozing and palling around with his colleagues and several others from Jormungand in their office building, just a few blocks from Thor's workplace in Manhattan. He described it as “palling” because Thor Odinson did not “schmooze”, but the drinks plus getting to show off in front of a packed room of investors and businessmen during his talk had put him in a very good, and for once genuinely social, mood._

_In their messing around, they'd wrecked the office of a lesser colleague, a man apparently too shy to stand up for himself in the face of all this testosterone (he was already cleaning up on his own after their play), and the rest of them had mostly moved on to the common area with more drinks, a basketball produced from someone's desk drawer, several waste baskets being used as baskets, and couch cushions repurposed as padding for the drunken businessmen guarding their goals. It was a jumble of football and basketball with only semi-enforced rules at this blood-alcohol level._

_Thor was hanging around with them even though their horseplay was beneath his title, but that came as no surprise—he was in fact the only businessman in the city with long hair whom No One sane would dare question about it. And he was often drawn to rough sport._

_Yet by that hour of evening, Thor was over it, too high in their hierarchy to play with the children and too prideful of his new suit and scuff-less leather shoes. A couple of the young bucks had put their watches and wallets on the table where he was sitting and chatting with Fandral and Volstagg, two pleasantly goofy goons from Jormungand._

_But Thor’s meeting with the top predators on Jormungand’s corporate food chain last week—and it really wasn’t his responsibility to inform any of them, but Thor’s sense of both duty and the scope of his job were expansive._

_“I’ve just got m’self a new car, too,” Fandral slurred eagerly. He began pulling his phone out and sloppily jabbing at the screen. “Wanna see? It’s—it’s a new—brand new baby. Baby on the way, too.”_

_He bumbled his way to the photo and proudly presented the picture to him with a drunken forward sway: a gorgeous, pristine 488 Spider Ferrari in shining green._

_“What a great car you now have. All up front?” he asked, doubting it. “Or loan?”_

_“Loan,” Fandral said with a wistful sigh. “But she’s beautiful. S’beautiful, I think she’s worth it…rather fuck ‘er than my wife. She’s too hormonal now anyway.”_

_Thor took another swig of his drink and grinned at him._

_“Fandral, you may have a new car and an assload of debt, a mortgage, and a child on the way, but I’ll tell you what you don’t have,” he said with a conspiratorial wink._

“A job!”

_As he watched the shock slowly fade from Fandral’s blushing face and the man slowly raise his clenched fist, it occurred to Thor how rarely it was for others to appreciate his unique and sophisticated sense of h—_

_Thor dodged the punch and grabbed his arm, yanking him through the momentum so he wound up diving onto the floor on the other side of the desk. Fandral managed to get to his feet again and he must have decided he’d finally had enough when Thor broke his nose, because that was when he stopped getting back up._

_Idly, he looked up at Volstagg just in the off chance he was going to do anything about his friend getting knocked flat out on the floor and fired by not even his boss, but no, the great tub blinked and giggled stupidly._

_“He’ll be fine,” Volstagg said in what was supposed to be a soothing tone. “A knock never keeps him down long.”_

_When Volstagg went for refills and Fandral Kept bleeding on the carpet, Thor slipped the discarded wallets and the one expensive watch into his pockets. He'd have some fun with them later._

_He roughly wiped most of the blood off of his knuckles on a napkin and pulled out his phone to check that it was still working. As he was fiddling away, the Incoming Skype Call alert popped up, with Loki's account photo underneath. Aw, baby was missing him. Thor put a few steps of space between himself and the nearest drunk and accepted the video call._

_It was too dark to see where Loki was, but his eyelids looked heavy, like he'd just woken up from a nap, still tenderly sleepy and defenseless. Thor's cock stirred._

_“Hey, baby,” Thor murmured (relatively) quietly. “Feeling needy again already?” he teased._

_“You didn't text me at all today,” Loki said with a pout._

_“Busy day. Your Daddy showed the heads of three companies which way up today. Aren't you proud?”_

_“Why don't you take me with you? I could be cute there, too.”_

_Take Your Child to Work Day. A dark grin stretched across Thor's face._

_“Baby taking my calls and handling paperwork. What a_ load _of work we'd get done… Are you hiding from Daddy underneath those covers?”_

_Loki grinned and his cheeks pinked. He shifted and, as it turned out, the Bed sheets slid down a few tantalizing inches. His nipples had to be lurking just a touch further down._

_Milk-white bed sheets against milk-white boy skin. With the video quality, it was hard to tell where one stopped and the other started, so he let his gaze roam freely, obtrusively; the kid liked it, like everyone else who'd ever caught Thor's attention._

_“I think my baby's feeling frisky. Honey, what put you in such a state?”_

_Loki didn't answer. In a movement that could be described as fluid, Loki arched his bare little body out of the covers and smoothly slid a shirt down over all that moon-white skin, and Thor saw a flash of those pretty, pink nubs. He fell back into the pillows, where only one glittering, green eye remained visible to see his dirty work all over Thor's face._

_Thor slipped into an office and closed the door behind him. When he tried to lock the door behind him, he discovered it was broken._

_...This could be bad, couldn’t it._

_Thor threw himself down in the big office chair and turned up the volume on his phone; if this got tasty, he wanted to hear him properly._

_Loki was chewing the bed sheet between his teeth. Precious. Thor felt the same way._

_“Stop being cute,” he ordered teasingly._

_“No!” Loki chirped. He looked absolutely gleeful._

_“Then come be cute in my bed.”_

_“But you're not in your bed!”_

_God, his eyes were so pretty and innocent-looking._

_“We'll just play pretend,” he declared, as he reached down and undid his belt buckle. No, scratch that—“Hmm, no, I think you're being a very naughty and horny little boy who had to bother Daddy at work. That's very bad manners, baby; Daddy has important matters to attend to that require a real man's attention. A lot of people rely on him. That's how he pays your bills...”_

_“But I can't help it,” Loki whined softly. He bit his pretty, little bottom lip. “I miss you so much.”_

_The camera pulled back all the way down so the tops of Loki's thighs came into view._

_“Sooo much, Daddy,” Loki emphasized as his hand grazed over the little bulge in his shorts._

_Thor hissed through his teeth. He was going to wreck this boy, if Loki didn't wreck him first._

_At that time, Loki had neither yet been naked for Thor, nor sent him any of the nude pics or videos for which Thor, in his most stubborn and horny moments, tried to cajole, wheedle, bribe, badger, and (laughably) order out of him. (This meant Loki was in possession of several candid photos and short Personal videos of Thor's in his efforts to “trade” and seduce... He'd been wise enough not to include his face or hair, and never recorded his voice in the videos, but he'd given Loki his real number so it was really just stupid.)_

_So Thor was Rather Keen when he saw Loki progress past toying with the hems of his clothes and actually flashing him more skin._

_Loki ran his hands up his thighs, bunching his shorts up under his hands to expose creamy inner thighs, then he turned around bent over on his hands and knees to wiggle his cute, little butt in the air. One of the shorts remained bunched up and Thor locked onto the beginning of the soft curve of one cheek._

_“Very cute, baby,” he growled. “Take those off and show Daddy.” He wanted to bite him on the backs of his thighs and on his ass and—anywhere meaty he hadn't been permitted yet, really._

_“Are you sure, Daddy? I'm not being too naughty?” Loki asked coyly as he stood up, his ass still to the phone, and ran his hands up over thigh and bum. “I don't want a spanking! I'm not going to break a rule by accident, am I?”_

_“Babe, you can only do right,” Thor groaned under his breath, even if he knew his instinct to possess and abuse the flesh of anything cute and forbidden meant a spanking would come either way. Then he ordered: “Clothes off. Daddy hasn't seen a single pretty thing all day, but my good boy is about to fix that.”_

_Loki giggled like the little brat he was, but he obeyed. He turned and held the hem of his shirt between his teeth, exposing a swathe of beautiful, unblemished skin (but just the bottoms of his nipples, which fucking drove Thor batshit), and slowly began sliding down his shorts—little jogging shorts, red, with a white line around the hems and up the side like an arrow for the eyes. Thor became particularly still as he watched._

_The pretty grooves of his hipbones, and the shadows below pointing downward. Any farther and Thor would see thigh._

_Thor moaned as Loki's cock sprang up over the waistband. His boy scooped his cute, little balls up to rest on top of the fabric, where Thor could see them vividly against their ruddy backdrop. Thor bit his lip as he stared, holding the phone no more than a couple inches away from his face. Distracted, he didn't blink or even stroke his cock. His mouth was watering._

_“Odinson! One more! One more! Get yer ass out here, we need another for t' team!” shouted Volstagg somewhere outside. “Let's grind 'em into the dirt! Where's ya go?”_

_His mouth was watering. He needed to get his mouth on All of That._

_“You're beautiful, baby,” he said. He swallowed and began sluggishly squeezing his dick. “You're not shy at all today. You never should feel shy, when you look the way you do.”_

_“Why aren't you here?? Daddyyy, I wanna be touched,” Loki whined. “Please fix it? Pretty please?” The need in his voice was gorgeous._

_That little shit, picking one of the rare nights when Thor Couldn't visit… He wasn't surprised, but his cock still ached._

_Thor found a bottle of lube in one of the drawers and warmed it in his hands before sliding it over himself, in perfect view for his boy. He groaned softly as he gently squeezed and stroked himself, showing his big cock and his big hand. Loki leaned in, his mouth hanging open like a target, and he went pink._

_“You like the look of a real man's cock, Lo? How do these big hands look to you? Daddy's going to take care of you next time...”_

_Loki bit his lip and moaned prettily. His hand went around his cock but the little tease didn't grasp it yet, just ran the inside of his thumb against his swollen dick. “And your mouth—please? I want all of you...”_

_Thor groaned through his teeth. He would force those legs apart and suck him down until Loki cried. That mesh scarf he had—around Loki's wrists…_

_There was a sudden 'BANG' of a body hitting the frosted glass wall outside the office, followed by a smattering of laughter and hooting as a trio of shadows walked down the hall._

_Thor growled at the Vision finally revealing itself to him on his phone. “Jerk off, baby...that's it. Show Daddy how you like it.”_

_Loki whimpered, his legs crossing adorably at the knees as he obeyed. He stroked himself with one hand and with the other it looked like he was pressing a button on the underside, below the head, but he couldn't be sure. “I like it more when...huh...like this, when I can see—” he paused to bite his bottom lip and whine. He slid his shorts off. “I wish it was you touching me.”_

_Liar._

_Still, Thor's hand came down his cock more speedily each time. He could only hear the sounds coming from Loki's mouth, but the wet slapping of his own activities were loud in his ears. He needed this boy; he had to unwind him. His free hand descended to cup and massage his heavy balls as he stared at his boy, needing to split him open and fill him up._

_“I want—” Loki cried softly, shaking his head so his hair flapped cutely back and forth. “It's not enough; I need more...please, Daddy...”_

_“Do you know what it feels like,” he growled, “to take a man as big as me inside?”_

_Loki shook his head, but that wasn't the point. Thor moaned softly as he watched Loki begin to mimic him with one hand on his balls. Thor bit his lip as he looked into his eyes, and Loki's thighs sprang open._

_Thor grunted, loudly, and craned forward to see. He tugged himself faster. He was too cute, too—Thor would do anything._

_“I'm gonna take really good care of you, baby, open you with my fingers, make you come to loosen you up...so you can take it all inside. Then every time you're horny afterward, you're going to feel just how empty you are without Daddy's cock. You're going to remember how good it feels to be full. You'll think of me, of what I deliver.”_

_“Hnngh...I want it...”_

_“And if that's still not enough, I'll have to put my whole fist in there. You're gonna come on Daddy's knuckles, baby.”_

~

“Daddy, come _on!”_ Loki yowls as he tries to yank his wrists out of Thor's hold and Thor pounds him down into the mattress. Loki is beautiful beneath him, flushed and spread and trapped, and adorably, impotently, furious—when Thor's dick isn't hitting his sweet spot. Thor refuses to let him come this time—perhaps not next time either; Loki is going to know who owns him, viscerally. 

He leans down and bites the side of Loki's neck with a deep growl. But the spoiled, impatient brat doesn't listen: he keeps struggling, so Thor speeds up the pace until he's slamming into him, as though if he fucks him hard enough, he can crush even Loki's memories of Svadilfari. 

Thor releases a deep cry as it hits him and he thrusts a few times more before shoving himself down to his balls into his boy to dump his load deep inside.

He remains there, heaving and sweaty, on top of Loki with a firm hold on his wrists until at last Loki's cock goes soft from neglect. With his free hand, Thor swirls the plug around in its little dish of lube, and carefully replaces his softening cock with the neon green toy in his boy's ass.

Once released, Loki flops irritably onto the bed. He knows well enough by now what will happen if he tries to jerk himself off, so he just wriggles away when Thor tries to lie down with him. Thor grabs him by the ankle, yanks him back against his chest, and locks his arms around him. Hopelessness aside, it is cute when Loki tries to run away. 

“You're such an ass,” Loki mutters against one of Thor's forearms. Thor squeezes him tighter, the belly of the muscle mashing his cheek and lips.

Thor smirks and gets comfortable. He only loosens his hold on Loki when he feels the tension leave his boy's muscles and he judges him to finally know his place. He latches onto the meat of his shoulder and gives Loki a good gnawing, just this side of Too Hard for his boy, who sits for it somewhat less submissively than usual.

~

_Farbauti had just left the room, leaving Thor hungrily alone with Loki on the couch before a flat screen television displaying something from PBS Thor didn't give a flying fuck about because of Loki's shorts. And Loki. And the past week, with Loki's texts and Snaps. And the little hand that slid like a serpent across the couch and over his thigh; Thor grabbed it and placed it firmly on his crotch._

_So his goal for tonight was off to a shitty start._

_Loki's fingers encircled much of his cock and began to slide up the length through his pants. Thor's eyelids fluttered shut on an inhale, and when he breathed out again his eyes bored into Loki with an unsettling intensity. Thor didn't remember what Farbauti had said before she left; he didn't know if or when she was coming back or if she was on her millionth trip to the bathroom or something else Thor didn't want to know. It evaporated on the heat in Loki's cheeks._

_Loki's skin was beautifully soft and perfectly smooth—it would probably bruise like a flower petal—that made no sense, fuck Thor was terrible at metaphors—_

_Loki got off his lap and stood facing away from him._

_“I still do gymnastics! See, Daddy?”_

_He did exactly what one would expect, and the blatant offering and view as his lissome body bent to palm the floor—_

_Thor's knees hit the carpet behind him. His hungry fingers clasped lightly around one narrow ankle and one pretty calf as he nosed his way from heel to the slice of curved buttock his tiny shorts exposed. Thor tried not to bite it with as much success as a parched vampire, and the surprised yelp his failure produced was almost worth the risk of having gone too far, that Loki would take it away again—_

_Panting, Thor drew back and nuzzled into the softness of Loki's inner thighs, his nose brushing softly against the delicate skin of one, little ball that those tight, skimpy shorts had not enough wearing ease to contain; a single white cherry overflowing the basket. By the time he saw it, his mouth was already latching onto it._

_His tongue lapped over the little sphere, wrapping it in wet warmth that felt like long-deprived satisfaction to Thor and made Loki jolt with a whimper and then shiver. Mercifully, Loki remained right where he was and Thor was allowed to keep devouring him. Thor's covetous hands crept up and up those pale thighs as if both to fondle and keep him as he hungrily sucked that ball into his mouth. He had a piece of Loki inside his control for once, and savored it, cradled in the valley of his tongue. He liked the trembling, he liked the goosebumps, he liked the sounds beginning to flow out of his boy, and he loved the way those weak, little hands laid themselves over his and gripped as though he had the physical strength to keep Thor right there._

_“Daddy!” Loki began suddenly as though he had something of Great Import to announce right fucking then: “I've decided. I want you to be my first.”_

_From between his thighs, Thor made a sound like a beleaguered moose._

_Thor yanked Loki's shorts down and then he and his boy landed on the couch: Thor comfortably on his back, Loki balancing between the one food on the carpet and the shin on the cushion beside Thor's head while Daddy finally got his hands on that ass and his mouth on that tiny furl between his cheeks. It had happened so quickly Loki didn't quite realize what Thor was doing, and so he tensed until Thor's prodding, insistent tongue wetly slid inside—then Loki seemed to change his mind entirely._

_Thor groaned at the thunderclap that was Loki's transition into a needy, little whore: he wiggled and ground his butt down onto Thor's face even while Thor's grip ensured nothing short of a forklift could separate them. It made his cock throb and drew a guttural moan from deep inside Thor's chest. He cupped those narrow hips and kneaded those delicious boy cheeks as he licked him open. He thrust his tongue in and curled it past the rings of clenching muscle, spurred on by the sweltering heat inside, the broken moans, and the wet sounds of his actions. He feasted on Loki's quakes, his cries, and his untouched hole: he nibbled the ring of muscle, and sucked on it between his lips, and made out with the tender, little thing while Loki shook above him._

_Loki spoke to him in only two tones: one that meant “more” and one that made Thor fix the problem. Loud and wordless, Loki was yowling overhead and the poor thing had to struggle to remember to keep his balance with the one foot he had on the floor while it seemed his muscles in general were alternating between normal working order and strong, whole-body shudders. Thor licked and nibbled the taint and then got a satisfying amount of boy-cheek in his mouth and bit down, producing a surprised and thrilling shriek from his boy. He slapped the red mark he left until the whole cheek he'd claimed was ruddy, then dove back into his cleft to make Loki louder and his hole even pinker and puffier, engrossed in all of the act and reactions to his hungry, ardent work._

_Dimly, he felt trembling and jerky hands upon his belt buckle and his fly. He released a surprised groan as his cock was one moment freed and then just as swiftly trapped again, inside a warm and wet mouth. Thor wrapped his arms around Loki's waist and crushed him down against his chest—as long as Loki was making sounds like this, his ass belonged to Thor—while he let Loki try on his own to see how much of it he could fit inside his mouth._

_Jesus, he wouldn't stop moaning around his cock so Thor couldn't stop moaning into his ass, but when Loki's lips popped off the head to release a wordless, bestial cry, Thor reached down and grabbed him by the hair and began directing that mouth back down and up his cock again, swiftly starting to bring himself up to Loki's proximity to coming._

_And Loki was getting close indeed: he was jerking and spasming and crying ever louder until Thor's dick became utterly hopeless as a gag. Thor wanted to see it, so he took his boy's hips in his hands and shifted them over to the side of his head and took Loki's cock into his mouth as he watched his boy's flushed and sweaty face bobbing on his dick._

_Loki broke off again, his mouth gaping, apparently powerless to close it._

_“Daddy—!” he wailed. “You can't stop! You can't! I forbid you—”_

_Thor laughed, mouth full and everything._

~

Loki is actively struggling against his grip this time, dying to get his hands on his neglected cock as Thor pounds into him a second time. His cries are almost good as the constant chorus of begging on loop from his mouth, pleading with him to be nice and let him come and assuring him of how Very good he will be if Thor decides to be sweet to him.

He's let this go on long enough; he finally releases Loki's wrists, but his hand reaches his boy's cock first.

“All pleasure comes from Daddy, right, baby?” he growls as his big fist closes around the tender flesh and begins to stroke. _“Did you forget?_ You give your everything only to Daddy, don't you?” He slams his hips down into him for emphasis, and then thrusts in time with his steady, even strokes.

 _“Don't you?”_ he demands.

His boy's balls are drawn up so tight. “Yes! I swear! _Fuck!”_ Loki gasps and sobs and moves his hips between cock and hand.

“Good boy,” he grunts and speeds back up. He kisses his cheek like a loving daddy ought to, and barrels into that sweet ass until he feels the muscles spasm around his cock. Loki grabs Thor's arm and bites into the meat of it as he squeals as he comes over his bedsheets. Thor releases his boy's cock and holds him by the neck as he murmurs in soft and praising tones into his ear until the peak is over. Then he bends Loki over the bed at a right angle, mashing his cheek into his own cum as he starts moving again. He fucks him quickly before Loki's high wears off and he starts being a pain, and fills him with his second load while he's sheathed up to his balls inside him. 

With one hand controlling Loki's hips, he carefully pulls out and seals Loki up again with the well-lubed plug.

~

_Farbauti was out and Thor's plans to go and do things with Loki under the umbrella term of “quality time” had been met, and now they were “doing things” in a rather horizontal maneuver on the table in the basement after entering quietly through the back door._

_Thor moaned into his mouth and pulled off as he began sliding Loki's shirt decidedly upwards. Fucking cute—_ Tiny Pebbling Nipples _—Thor bit one of them and Loki gasped._

_“Thor, I'm scared...”_

_“I'll bet you're always scared,” he replied with a dark chuckle as his hands set upon the button and zipper of Loki's jeans._

_“I'm a virgin!”_

_Thor laughed. Loki wasn't inexperienced or lonely for male attention, he looked like the sort of boy whose phone had been ringing since he hit the age of—he didn't want to think about that._

_“THOR THIS IS IMPORTANT TO ME!” Loki yelled._

_Oh. So it was a_ **hard** _no._

_Thor let go of him and stood up. He rested his hands on Loki's knees and waited while it sunk in for Loki._

_Loki slowly relaxed. “I'm not ready, for it to be...inside,” he murmured, now looking anywhere but Thor's eyes._

_Thor kneaded Loki's thigh for a moment. “Outside?” he proposed._

_Loki looked up hesitantly. “What do you mean?”_

_Thor rocked his hips forward so the bulge in his pants brushed against the bulge in Loki's. “How much do you want to be covered in Daddy's cum?”_

_Loki bit his pretty lip as he looked Thor up and down._

_“You promise you won't put it in…?”_

_Thor smirked as he rubbed his hand over the erection straining against the fabric of Loki's jeans; Loki's eyelids fluttered. “No, baby: you promise to trust Daddy for five whole minutes.”_

_He licked his hand and slipped it beneath the waistband of his boy's jeans; Loki released a beautiful and needy moan as Thor grasped him._

_“Yeah? You want Daddy rutting his cock against you right on this table? Anyone could walk in on us. You want to feel trapped and helpless right here?”_

_“Daddy...” Loki whined, his grin rapidly returning. He pressed his hips up into Thor's hand._

_Thor leaned down over him, supporting himself and caging his boy in with his free arm as he watched Loki's face. “How jealous would Svad be? We should send him a picture of us, when I'm grinding my fat cock over yours and covering you with my cum.”_

_“Who?” Loki asked like he truly didn't recall. His feet tucked themselves around the backs of Thor's knees._

_“Good boy...”_

_``_

_“It's just the one, baby, like I said.” Thor pressed his lubed finger against the little furl. “Push to let me in… Good.”_

_“Ow,” Loki cried softly. Thor's fingers were thick._

_“Breathe, baby,” Thor said as he pushed the digit further. “Right around here.”_

_“I don't know...” Loki replied. His expression grew more frightened and his wide, unblinking eyes fixed on Thor's._

_Thor held out his free hand to him. “Hold,” he ordered, and Loki's hands sprang up to grip him tightly._

_He nodded to the bottle of lube on the table. “How much do we have left?”_

_Loki looked at it. “It's...more than half the bottle.”_

_“Always have more in reach. You'll need more than you think.”_

_Loki nodded weakly. His knuckles were no longer white._

_“Good boy… You must do this all the time when you think of me,” he purred._

_“My fingers are too small,” Loki whined. “I can't...I can never reach.”_

_Cute. “That's right, you're too little,” Thor murmured with a deep chuckle. “This is Daddy's job. You're in Daddy's hands now...”_

_“Hnnngh...”_

_It was very subtle, but the moment he hit the prostate, he knew: suddenly Loki's eyes rolled up and his head dropped down onto the pile of new shirts with a deep cry._

_Thor laughed. “There we go! Baby likes?”_

_Loki's thighs slid wide open in a wordless “fuck me,” followed by a long, Pathetic whimper. Thor chuckled; too cute._

_Then he increased the pressure—and closed his eyes in bliss as his boy's volume and pitch suddenly jumped._

_Screamers: proof of a benevolent god._

_``_

_“Ohfuckohfuckohfuck,” Loki mumbled into Thor's mouth. His arms clung to Thor's neck and his knees were locked around his waist and he was loud and warm and would Not Let The Fuck Go as Thor pumped his cock back and forth over Loki's and worked his finger inside of him._

_Thor groaned and shuddered over him; his own shirt was gone and his pants were bunched around his knees, but he'd finally gotten Loki naked and he Couldn't stop looking. The slick grind against his boy's bare cock and belly was perfect, and Loki was plainly trying to permanently attach himself to Thor's lips which somehow didn't stop him from talking to him. Baby babbled, sometimes nonsensical shit, but it was the tone again rather than the words that mattered, and he was beautifully, incoherently fucked up because of Thor and it made him feel a whole foot taller._

_“Daddyplease, Innnnngh—!” Loki pleaded, and the present headiness of his tone was exceptional. Thor squeezed their cocks in his hand, making the lube and cum squelch loudly, and sped the other one he had thrusting in and out of Loki's hole._

_Thor began thrusting his hips in time with his finger so he could savor each cry as he slammed his hips forward, imagining what it would be like when he finally had him fully. Loki was a little black hole of want underneath him and Thor immersed himself in the feel and sound of him—this was how Loki was going to Sound when he finally got his cock inside him; this was the way Loki was going to Cling to him; this was how he would squirm and writhe Because of him._

_“DaddyIneeditIneed,Ican'ttffffff-hnnghnow?”_

_Thor tore himself away from Loki's mouth and buried his face in the side of Loki's sweaty neck, releasing great puffs of air as he tried to regain control of himself. Like hell was he going to come before this hormonal virgin boy! He couldn't let Loki know what he was doing to him, so he bit into the meat of Loki's neck and stilled both his hands and his hips._

_Once it seemed like he'd avoided injury to his pride, Thor sighed, released Loki's neck and stood up. Loki, his eyelids half closed, stared dully up at him as though he hadn't quite noticed. Thor's cock twitched when he laid eyes on the mark he'd left—baby was going to have a hard time explaining that beauty!_

_A look of confusion grew over Loki's face, until, quite abruptly, his eyes snapped wide open and his face went pink with rage._

_“You're a—a bad man,” Loki whispered, trembling._

_Thor smirked down at him, and began to lazily stroking his own cock. He watched Loki's hungry eyes follow his hand up and down his thick shaft shining with lube._

_“You're evil,” Loki said, still not wholly believing it._

_Then Thor pulled his finger out and rested his hand on Loki's thigh._

_“EVIL!” Loki shrieked, scrabbling for that hand to get it back._

_Thor laughed and let him grab his wrist, but he pulled back just enough that he couldn't breach him even when Loki tried to manhandle his finger back inside. Loki snarled and spat and struggled while Thor stroked himself, too pleased to tease the shit out of the poor thing and save his pride with the same stone._

_“I want iiit, come ooooon,” Loki cried._

_“Ask nicely,” Thor purred._

_“DADDY GIVE IT TO ME!”_

~

The bed broke. 

Thor's hips stutter against Loki's ass as his orgasm shoots through him and into his boy. His hands are a forbidding vice-grip on Loki's hips, keeping himself deep inside and ensuring his boy gets his load in full. Thor moans and his belly tightens as he empties more of himself into Loki, for a third time.

Thor keeps Loki's ass seated fast against his groin so no cum can leak out as he sinks slowly down onto the mattress. Loki is a good boy, he thinks as he strokes the long, pretty hair on Loki's head. He tells Loki what a good job he did, giving it up to his own Daddy like a dumb, little slut.

“Nngh,” Loki replies with a tired but happy smile. He is putty in Thor's hands and Thor enjoys it, his hands wandering and squeezing and manhandling whenever he feels the whim.

Once Thor has caught his breath, he carefully shifts them so Loki's ass is the highest part of him and his hips are tilted just so before Thor pulls out with as little loss of his work as possible. He keeps Loki's ass facing the sky with one arm as he drags the plug through the little bowl of lube in the dish on the nightstand, but a delicious thought strikes him and he leaves the toy for the moment. He gathers some lube onto his fingers instead.

“Let's see how much you've got in you, baby,” Thor says lowly. Loki tenses momentarily when Thor's fingers breach his ring, but he relaxes and Thor delves inside up to his last knuckle to measure the damage. What he finds is as pleasing as it is exciting. He runs his fingers through the mess of his many loads, feeling both his own hot cum and the rings of muscle twitching tiredly yet hopefully around him. It's almost enough that it could slip out.

That's not enough at all.

“You feel full yet, baby?” 

“Mm...no, not quite,” Loki says. “Especially if I get to come next time...” 

Thor grunts in acknowledgment. He slips the slicked plug back in and gives the base and Loki's ass a fond pat. He doesn't need to prep Loki anymore this way. He can just nab him and fuck inside whenever he wants. 

If he gets to keep Loki… 

With this reminder of who he belongs to inside him at all times. 

He wants to buy handcuffs.

And a tracking collar. He could sync it to his phone. 

“I like how loose you're getting,” Thor says quietly.

Loki squirms and flushes. He runs his hands over his face—then he hides behind him. But he's smiling. It sparks something inside of Thor.

“Proof you're a slut, right here,” he says, pressing his thumb against the base of the plug so the head nudges into his tender insides. Loki releases a shuddering breath and his thighs tense. 

“Lying on your back all day every day, no other responsibility than taking cock and holding cum.”

Thor leans over him and nuzzles against the side of his boy's neck. He places a hand on Loki's narrow back and his fingers splay out across it.

“You deserve it. I pay for your private school so you can go out and become some important leader one day,” he murmurs. “But you're just going to come home and carry all of Daddy's cum, every day.”

Thor gathers Loki up in his arms and carries him, naked and covered in fluids, to his master bedroom. 

``

Flushed and spread, Loki lies naked on Thor's bed, his hands grabbing and his loosened hole winking, Thor imagines, in tandem; all of Thor coveted, all of Loki coveting. Thor kept the weeks of wanting at bay for a moment longer to savor this sight and this feeling, the dull ache of his cock swelling outwards before the loving, engulfing crush of his boy's body intent on milking him of everything, and how it must be for Loki—the aching emptiness before lush fulfillment—as he slowly stroked the great, slick length of his fat, veiny cock. That Loki had been able to take it all inside when they began was a marvel—

“You ready for more? Ready to take another load?”

Loki blanches. “It—you have more? It's a _lot—”_

“I think baby wants more,” Thor growls into his ear. “Or did you think Daddy ran dry? _Never,_ baby; that's part of his job...”

He grabs his boy's cock and strokes him at a torrid pace, so Loki jerks and twitches above him with a quavering wail. With Thor ramming against his prostate, he comes in short order with another jerk and collapses, exhausted.

By the time he's done coming inside his boy a fourth time, Loki has passed out and Thor has to commit himself to filling him up again to keep from doing the same. He comes deep inside and carefully lowers himself down onto the bed. Still panting, he pulls out and uses his fingers to tug at his swollen ring to look inside.

Ooh, baby is full of him.

Thor reinserts the plug. 

And now baby can't get him out.

~

So perhaps the reality of their first time Truly and Properly Fucking was embarrassing (read: pathetic). Hypothetically.

What Really happened and Thor will never admit to, occurred in Farbauti's house: Thor lost control of himself upon seeing something involving Loki and a baked item, and thank god that was **T** he **R** ed **L** etter **D** ay Loki was _finally_ ready because in that state Thor could not _make_ himself take off his own shoes.

_Thor and Farbauti were arguing in Farbauti's living room. She was throwing a soiree there that evening and she was stressed about it despite having the staff to take much of the dirty work off her hands—evidently so stressed that the fact that Thor was wearing one of his best suits instead of the smart-casual dress code was a Shriek Level Problem for the gracious hostess._

_At that point, Thor was shouting, too. It was one of his Best suits, and he prized it with all of the ardor afforded by his vanity. The fabric was excellent, the cut perfect, and the tailoring expert; he only dry cleaned it, and entrusted said dry cleaning to one individual. Almost thirty times, he'd paid for that blessed professional to fly with him on lengthy business trips to ensure perfect care of his best garments._

_Then Loki ran into the room looked flushed and excited with his backpack still on; he must have run straight from the driver's car._

_“Mom! Thor! Someone donated a vibrator to my group's drop point! If someone donates cremated remains, I'll be done with my scavenger hunt!!!”_

_Glaring, Thor snapped, “Don't tempt me.”_

_“What are you doing home so late, Loki?!” Farbauti cried. “What the hell were you doing!”_

_Loki jerked backward. “Why are you yelling at me?!”_

_“You do NOT have to be a little shit TODAY!” Farbauti yelled._

_“I was at Community Engagement—it's—always on Fridays!”_

_Thor got in between the two of them and started shouting at Farbauti to lay off. He was too late or it couldn't be helped; a second later, he heard the sounds of sneakers squeaking across the floor and the door slamming shut behind them._

_``_

_Still seething, Thor was putting his suit jacket back on as he strode through the door to the kitchen and towards the backdoor. He needed to move his car out of the way to allow for more guest parking space and then he—forgot what he was doing._

_Loki was naked, on the floor, and lying in the middle of the remains of the gigantic party cake large enough that about half of it was still standing, While a teenage boy lay in it._

_'Tantrum' was the word that quietly echoed from somewhere in the back of Thor's brain before lack of blood flow swallowed it._

_Loki stretched like a cat and got on his knees; he wiggled his cake-slathered butt in the air._

_“Daddy,” Loki crooned at him. “I think I'm ready.”_

_Thor dropped his suit jacket and knelt in the cake._

_``_

_No brain, no thoughts, only Good. Thor flopped onto his back on the floor (and flattened cake) beside Loki and panted as he stared at the ceiling._

_At some point he regained the willingness and perhaps even ability to move, and pulled Loki flush against him; let Svadilfari or any of them try to get him now, Thor wasn't letting this peach out of his sight._

_He rolled towards his boy and ran his nose along the curve of his slender neck, inhaling; then his mouth opened and he was devouring that exposed peach-flesh._

_“Ngh—dah—did you like the cake at all?” Loki asked._

_“Yes.”_

_“Then what flavor was it?”_

_Thor sucked a glob of cake and icing off of Loki's shoulder, swallowed, and licked his lips._

_“Cannoli cake.”_

_Loki grabbed his phone and tapped the screen with his finger. Thor's hands began roaming over Loki's body again. It wasn't enough; Thor rolled over, the cake squishing audibly beneath the meat of his pant-clad thigh, and began sucking new marks into his boy's neck. Today he was going to Lay Waste to this body so long denied him._

_“Did you like it?” Loki asked again. He arched his back and stuck out his bottom as Thor's hand moved down his spine. Thor smacked his ass and kneaded one of the pink cheeks._

_“If I didn't before...”_

_Thor turned Loki onto his back and got between his spread thighs. There were his cute cock, balls, and hole on display between these weak, little legs that couldn't even begin to put up a fight against his strength, all of it looking compellingly pretty._

_“Daddy, the party starts in twenty minutes.”_

_Oh fuck._

_Then they heard the kitchen door swing open._

_Thor looked up and there was Roskva, frozen stock-still and staring in the doorway._

_Thank god she didn't scream._

_Annoyed, Thor smacked his lips rudely. “He looks good, don't he?”_

_Roskva snapped out of it and covered her face in her hands. “I'm going to Hell,” she murmured to herself. “I'm going to Hell, oh god, I didn't—I must have—”_

_“You're not going to hell!” Thor snapped. “You're going to die.”_

_“If you tell anyone,” Loki whispered in his ear._

__**“If** _you tell anyone about this.”_

~

Teenage sex drive be damned. Thor stands beside the bed and looks down at Loki, sprawled and sweaty and still save for the small movements of his ribcage now that he is no longer gasping for breath. The neon green base of the plug is secure and on display between his boy's flushed red cheeks. There are a few stray drops and smears of cum around the base of the plug.

Thor runs one hand over Loki's rump and gives him a slap hard enough to make him squirm, and he does.

Loki flops onto his back with a huff and shifts a little. Thor looks him over. It's not dramatic, but he has a cute little cum belly now.

Thor uncaps the bottle of lube and wets his dick. He gets back on top of him before Loki has time to think. He's going to make this one count.

``

There was a time when Loki's screams would have the staff running into the room, but now they know it's one of “Daddy's” hobbies.

Thor grabs his boy and manhandles him from hands and knees to his back on the mattress; he's caging him in again before Loki's last cry has ended, stuffing his dick back into his hole. Now Thor gets to see himself disappearing into that swollen, abused cleft, see his body contorting as the muscles squeeze his dick, watch the green irises disappear as Loki's eyes roll up. His toes are curling and he keeps reaching out blindly for something to hold onto, until Thor roughly jerks him back down into the mattress beneath him.

Now this bed sounds as though it's at risk of breaking, too, but Thor just keeps fucking, too needy to feel Loki securely in his hands to deal with the lock of his blond hair keeps flapping over his face and obscuring the sight of His boy. He flicks his head to get it out of the way, to get another few seconds of seeing Loki split open and flushed all over. His hands are clasped around those milky thighs, sometimes absently stroking the red marks he left before with something that is a cousin to tenderness while Loki wails.

Loki is at this moment an object in the fundamental sense of the word: his limbs give out and he comes dry, cock untouched, with a pathetic cry, as all sign of the person living in his exhausted body seems to evaporate. 

Poor, little thing, ragdolling like that under the force of Thor's thrusts.

Thor bends at the waist so their foreheads touch, hooks Loki's knees over his shoulder, and thrusts down to the root. Loki is now AWOL as Thor cleaves into his slack hole. He feels his own cum sloshing around inside with each thrust, and he Knows a little bit of it is dribbling out of Loki with each thrust. Thor groans like he he's been punched in the gut as the last of his cum is pumped out into his boy's sweet, little ass.

Thor just manages to replace his cock with the plug. He lies there, the breadth of his man's body trapping the sheen of sweat over Loki's back as he clutches him to his chest—and neck, and ass, and thighs, and calves; his arm is too heavy with muscle for Loki to lift, too, and all of Thor's seed was sealed inside his little body.

He thinks it is enough now.

``

When Thor opens his eyes again, he sees it is dusk through the windows. He rolls over to check the clock, then spies Loki. He blinks, and then he grins; baby looks _wrecked._

Loki's skin is littered with bite-marks and bruises, his lips are swollen, he has beard burn on his neck and shoulders, and the sheen of sweat on his skin where they slept flush against each other glows like a glaze of oil where the last rays of sunlight come through the windows. Thor admires his work, moving his big hand over the planes of now mottled skin down from the little collarbones to Loki's belly, the normally concave, tight abdomen now very gently rounded and soft from all the cum he pumped inside. Thor palms it with rare satisfaction.

Young, dumb, and full of cum. He carries the evidence of Daddy's claim with him wherever he goes...

Loki moans softly in what sounds like a mixture of pleasure and discomfort, and rolls over to bury his face in Thor's chest. Thor drapes one big arm over his little body, his hand wrapping around the back of Loki's neck like a collar.

“Did Daddy fill you up?” he murmurs right into his ear before nipping it. “You ever going to forget what Daddy did to you today, huh?” He gives a rough slap to Loki's bum.

Loki makes a small sound and mumbles, “No, Daddy.” He burrows against Thor's chest.

Smiling in bone-deep pride, he drags Loki's limp form on top of him and basks.

If he was coming home to this every day, he could throw his blood pressure pills into the—did he? Fuck.

He grabs his phone from the nightstand and texts Roskva to make a platter for two and bring it up to his bedroom. Then he throws his phone back onto the nightstand, not bothering to cover their state, _or_ obscure even slightly the neon green base of the plug still lodged in his teenage boy's ass, _or_ hit the button to open the automatic windows to freshen the air.

He only pays them to keep their shit together in his house.

His dick is still hanging between his sweaty, parted thighs when he hears the bedroom door opens. He shifts not an inch, his eyes remaining closed as he follows the sounds of the Prim, Professional footsteps across the room, the tray being laid on the table, pulling out only one of the two chairs there, and then crisply exiting through the door with a quiet _'snik'._

Thor carries Loki to the table, ignoring the whines that are coming from the exhausted teenager being expected to be vertical of all things at six in the evening, the little brat. 

He sits and puts Loki on his lap—not just on his lap, but just so: situating the center line of his ass and the plug over the biggest, highest bulging quad on his thigh, so whenever Thor takes a deep breath, Loki releases a small _“nngh”_ from overstimulation.

Butt plug notwithstanding, Loki tries to reach for the unnaturally orange, food- _like_ garbage chips on the platter, but Thor tugs him back sharply back. Then Loki sits obediently on his Daddy's thigh with his mouth open, waiting to be fed like he can't be trusted to do it successfully himself. Maybe he's doing it ironically, but Thor is ready to accept the gesture at face value.

By hand, Thor feeds him a few bites of raw smoked salmon and home-made crackers topped with spiced, stewed pear slices over caramelized brie. Loki eats what is given to him without a sound of complaint, but he is still pouting so Thor, shaking his head at the sky, gives him a handful of the garbage chips. Spoiled brat. 

``

They have a quick shower and a piss, and after they've both toweled off, Thor carries his boy back to bed. He pulls back the covers and Loki squirms, one pale arm reaching behind him towards the butt plug until Thor's hand closes around his wrist.

“No,” Thor scolds. “You keep that in until Daddy says so.”

He lays Loki down gently—as though now compared to any moment before, he judges him to warrant gentleness—and tucks the covers over his shoulders.

Loki latches onto his wrist. “Are you leaving?” he asks, sounding shocked.

Thor says nothing, but slides under the sheets beside him. He nuzzles into the soft skin of his boy's neck and drapes an arm and a leg over him to weigh him down.

Loki tugs on his arm, and apparently has decided he is fucking five: “Daddy? Lullaby?”

Thor releases a lengthy grunt before slowly beginning to hum some shaky notes of some lullaby Loki played for him many months ago. He's probably off key, but Loki doesn't mind if the nestling activity against his chest is any indication.

If it weren't for everything presently lodged in Loki's ass, this might be sweet.

The mattress and pillows are both dense and soft, supportive and inviting. The sheets are silky and cool. They are safe, comfortable, and feeling good. The clock on the bedside table makes its soft, even 'tick-tock' sound file, imitating those old-fashioned ones in ancient houses, and the daylight outside the windows softens and fades for evening.

“Daddy, I—I love you,” Loki stutters into his chest. He starts hiccuping. Thor opens his eyes and blinks several times before he realizes that Loki is crying.

He looks down. “What?” he asks gruffly but quietly—it does not make it gentler, but it sounds less brusque.

“I'm not a—a whore,” Loki sobs against him. “N-no matter wh—I know I'm not! I know I'm...”

Thor pulls back to get a good look at him. “Who called you a whore?”

Loki's gaze is pointed downward towards the bed sheets, in the same direction as the tears sliding over his cheeks.

“Helblindi. And—”

“Your mother.”

“No,” Loki insists, but it’s a plea. “But I think she wants to.” 

He wipes his cheeks on the back of his arm. 

“I want to wait a little longer before I...before I talk to the police...just not this second...” 

Thor looks at the far wall. Loki's said a whole lot to him these past two years.

“You want to be held,” Thor states, but it's a question.

Loki nods and Thor sits up against the headboard and pulls Loki onto his lap. He wraps his arms around him.

“They're wrong,” Thor tells him as he lets his boy try to burrow inside him. “They're dumb.” 

He knows that much.

On the bedside table, Thor hears his phone break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it, [Mona-Aslan.](http://sexualthorientation.tumblr.com/) :) And a big thanks to her for helping w/ the promo pics on tumblr!
> 
> Same handle on [Tumblr.](http://radiatorfromspace.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Now onto finishing the Vampire Thorki fic... X__x It was only a year late _before_ my hard drive and external hard drive failed w/ the file on them.


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